“Listen up, ladies and gentlemen, our fugitive has been on the run for ninety minutes. Average foot speed over uneven ground barring injuries is 4 miles-per-hour. That gives us a radius of six miles. What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen miles. Your fugitive’s name is Dr. Richard Kimble. Go get him.”
That was the speech Tommy Lee Jones gave as Sam Gerard before he and his team went hunting for fugitive Dr. Richard Kimball in the movie The Fugitive. Life imitated art recently in Oregon.
A similar speech may have been spoke recently in Washington County Oregon when a man suspected of murder fled the courthouse before his jury selection hearing.
28-year-old Edi Villalobos is accused of stabbing another man to death back in 2021. As he arrived in court, officers removed his restraints (per state law) and that’s all the opportunity he needed to flee. Surveillance video throughout the courthouse follows his escape as he dashes from the courtroom, down the hall and out the front door. Nothing screams, “I’m guilty” like running from the authorities.
Any chance of Villalobos being to blame the murder on a ‘one-armed-man’ is out the window now – which may also be the next way he tries to escape his fate.
[YouTube: Washington County Sheriff’s Office – Oregon]
