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Richard Lee McNair Breaks His Silence ***UPDATED STORY WITH VIDEO***
03/25/09 - 03:28 PM
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Richard Lee McNair—the convicted killer who escaped from Pollock Penitentiary by shipping himself out in a pallet several years ago—is now mailing out letters from his new digs, a super maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.

          McNair hadn’t enjoyed more than a few hours of freedom on April 5th, 2006, when he was stopped on train tracks by Ball police officer Carl Bordelon. Bordelon didn’t capture McNair, but the officer’s dash video cam did capture the entire exchange between himself and the 3-time escapee.

          The smooth-talking McNair first identified himself to the officer as ‘Robert Jones’, and minutes later as ‘Jimmy Jones’.

          The encounter is a popular item on YouTube.

          From his perspective, McNair describes what happened that day in a lengthy letter ... his third letter to me.

          “Had left Pollock Pen at about 09:45 and could not exit mailbag pallet until around 11:00,” he writes of his first day of freedom. “I would have until 16:00 (main count) before it was known I was missing. At the least felt would hear sirens when the bed count was discovered.”

          McNair reveals that just before he ran into Bordelon he stashed “food, clothes, water, etc” under a train trestle. “Felt I was within range of Alexandria, LA (my destination)”, he reveals, “and a makeshift backpack would stick out.”

          “Jogged along the tracks not really seing the cruiser because the trees paralleling the tracks blocked it”,  McNair further reveals. “My plan was to get back in the trees if he (Bordelon) truly confronted me.”

          Some have said it was fortunate the officer didn’t confront McNair because the Duncan, Oklahoma native—who pleaded guilty to an execution-style killing during a burglary near Minot, North Dakota in 1987—would have turned on him. McNair denies that, saying he made a promise “to myself and God” he wouldn’t lay a hand on anyone.

          “I proved true to that pledge several times.”

          McNair reveals he feared that while the officer was talking to him that backup was on the way.

          He says he realized he was getting a “get out of jail free card” when the officer was on the phone to his detachment. The con’s reaction to talking his way out of an arrest: “relief, disbelief, bewilderment”.

          McNair adds that he knew “the trail would get hot again” as soon as Bordelon or others found out the mistake.

          McNair says several things went in his favor out on the tracks that day—the photo of him from the pen was not the best (“I look different in person versus posed photo”) ... and prison officials had told police they weren’t even sure McNair had bolted.

          McNair says the heat also worked in his favour that day because the temperature was more than 90 degrees, the humidity over 80 per cent—and the officer was wearing a black uniform and body armor.

          Richard Lee McNair isn’t saying yet how he managed to get to Penticton, British Columbia that same month. Nor is he saying where he crossed into Canada—and how.

          Mounties in Penticton chased McNair after confornting the fugitive sitting in a stolen car. McNair outran them and fled to a forest.

          Says McNair about that, “after the incident in Penticton, rode a bike to Kelowna. Not a bad view, but a bit concerned about Mounties looking for me. Later learned I was safe.”

          What McNair didn’t know is that the Mounties didn’t know the man they had chased was the Richard Lee McNair. It dawned on the officers when they watched America’s Most Wanted who the middle-aged sprinter was.

          McNair reveals he snuck back into the States, at least once. “Drove a Subaru Outback from Vernon to the border at Blane, Washington and crossed into the U.S. on bike.”

          He also says he panned for gold “somewhere between Vancouver and Williams Lake”, a town about 300 miles north of Vancouver. He admits he never got much more than dust.

          McNair confirms he was in the Calgary area ... and from there he travelled west to Banff, Revelstoke, Kamloops and Vancouver. He figures this happened around January, 2007.

          The former car salesman says he only stole vehicles from auto dealers, checking buyer information stickers on the windows to see if the vehicle had a GPS-type tracking device. If it did, McNair didn’t touch it.

          The fugitive says he really wanted a Hummer, but felt the expensive SUV would have stuck out. So he says he kept to white “everybody has it type” autos.

          McNair planned on getting a 3/4 ton truck/camper but ditched that idea when one of the supposed sightings of him was in North Dakota “of all places” in a truck with camper.” “Rigged the van instead.”  (McNair’s quote)

          While the con says he didn’t always have the feeling that bloodhounds were on his tail, he recalls a time when he was driving through the Canadian Rockies and cars ahead of him came to a stop. McNair feared it was a roadblock. Turns out, some tourists had pulled over to get pictures of “some beautiful rams lazily chewing their cud”. McNair said he too pulled over and took photos of the rams.

          McNair indicates that when he wasn’t behind the wheel of a stolen vehicle he was on his mountain bike, travelling everywhere on his bike, especially around Jasper and, later, Quebec.

          McNair writes about a close encouter with the police. He says not long after he bought a Sony HD video camera he was staying at a motel close to Chilliwack, BC. He left the motel to buy something and returned to find the place surrounded by a police ‘SWAT’ team. “I was like, ‘okay time to ride into the sunset’.

          “As I drove off, I swtiched on the local AM news station and discovered a man was holding someone hostage. Returned and filmed a very cool 20 minutes of the standoff. Suppose the Mounties are looking at the tape going, ‘what the heck?’”

          Every sighting of McNair earned him another alert on Fox Television’s “America’s Most Wanted”. Millions watched the program, but no one as intently as James Lee McNair. McNair, who described the show as a “thorn”, said on the day America’s Most Wanted was broadcast he would stock up and food (“sandwich stuff, milk, fruit, etc”) and fuel his vehicle up.

          “Then if featured, would keep it low for a couple of days”.

          He says his biggest fear were the random TV features: ‘Larry King Live’, ‘Anderson Cooper 360’, etc. “Can’t keep up with all of those”, he says. McNair reveals he did Internet searches of transcripts and on occasion would catch a show ... “and find myself going ‘wow’.”

          “The Internet is a curse” McNair says but adds,  “has many benefits for one on the run”. He says he tried not to key in ‘Richard Lee McNair’ on Google ... would instead find a story about him in it and ‘hyperlink’ to his name. He admits though he doesn’t know if this really made a difference.

          According to McNair, his initial plan was to buy a couple of parcels of land in Central British Columbia, at Williston Lake, near the small town of MacKenzie. After seeing ads for the property McNair writes that he took the trip up there “and almost cried.” Drought had hit the lake level hard and the pine beetle infestation had devestated (sp) the area.” “Only one road in and out didn’t help my comfort level either”.

          The former fugitive points out that the information he had on land, passports, etc was lost on the laptop the Mounties grabbed in Penticton. “Sure found out about USB memory sticks after that”, he adds.

          McNair has confirmed police information that he had a number of laptops while on the lam. The computers—with the help of a scanner and a pet ID website and a little photoshop magic—produced his fake Alaska driver’s licence.

          He said he also managed to rig up his video camera to his laptop so he could cut his own hair.

          Near the border at Derby Line, Vermont, McNair revealed he thought about crossing back into the U.S. “Simply acted as if on a Sunday bike ride, rode around to see if possible to drive a vehicle across. 50/50 chance. Lots of cameras on U.S. side.”

          According to McNair, he also drove to the Laurentian Highlands of south-central Quebec where he spent a lot of time near Lac Saint-Jean. The irony was that during World War Two Lac Saint-Jean was home to a couple of prisoner of war camps.

          McNair would later complete his Canadian tour with visits to Halifax, Nova Scotia and Saint John, New Brunswick. He described the people of Fredericton, New Brunswick as “very nice and well-educated” and the people of Campbellton, where he was eventually captured, as “very friendly”.       

          It was an observant RCMP officer who cut short McNair’s freedom, his third and likely final unapproved furlow from prison. Off-duty Constable Dan Melanson, travelling on a highway in northern New Brunswick, spotted a new cube van with “crappy looking” window tinting. He suspected the vehicle might be stolen, perhaps involved in smuggling cigarettes and alcohol. Melanson called ahead to the RCMP detachment in Campbellton and next day one of America’s Most Wanted was wanted no more.

          A gracious McNair recalls the day he was captured, following a low-speed chase and an even slower foot chase in Campbellton on October 27, 2007. “I just turned left instead of right and an observant officer got me. Just one of those days.”

          Mounties told reporters that McNair was cooperative and even joked with them. McNair said one officer wanted to know what the reward was for him. “$25,000” he told them. “That’s not much”, said the cop. McNair said he told them “that was because all of the government money is tied up in Osama Bin Laden’s reward”.

          McNair describes the RCMP in Campbellton as “good men doing their job.”
(Byron Christopher is a crime reporter in Edmonton, Alberta. He can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  Much of Byron’s reporting on Mcnair was given first to a Canadian website called LastLinkOnTheLeft.  The site follows crime and other news and in the video edition of KALB’s story, some of the images depicted are screen shots.  As such, here is a direct link to this highly informative and creative page: http://www.lastlinkontheleft.com/)

(CLICK THE LINK BELOW to hear the interview [part 1 of 3] with the author of this article: McNair’s penpal).
http://www.cenlamedia.com/alb/index.php/site/article/audio-interview-part-1-the-mcnair-letters/alb7715423/

(CLICK THIS LINK BELOW to hear part 2 of 3.)
http://www.cenlamedia.com/alb/index.php/site/article/audio-interview-part-2-the-mcnair-letters/alb7715424/

(CLICK THIS LINK BELOW to hear the 3rd audio file of 3)
http://www.cenlamedia.com/alb/index.php/site/article/audio-interview-part-3-the-mcnair-letters/alb7715426/

Below is one of the letters Richard Lee McNair sent to Byron Christopher. It concerns his encounter with Ball Police Officer Carl Bordelon.