WAVERLY
Sitting on the steps of their trailer in handcuffs, the couple called each other by their real names for the first time in almost 30 years.
The aliases they devised for themselves had long rolled off the tongue as naturally as if they'd been born with them. Now they struggled with the sound of the truth: Richard Boucher. Debbie Boucher.
Inside, police searched closets and drawers.
Debbie Boucher had never been in trouble and wouldn't be now, her husband thought, if not for his foolhardy escape from a Chesapeake prison. Richard Boucher thought he could make things right on the outside, so he'd asked her to meet him with a car near Tidewater Correctional Unit No. 22 one October night in 1982.
He did not imagine the price they would pay for his freedom, the vastness of the lies and the losses. He didn't expect the blessings, either.
Richard Boucher shuffled into a tiny no-contact visitation booth at Sussex I State Prison last week and spoke from behind double-paned glass. He is 57, has lost the use of his right hand and walks with a slight limp.
More than half a dozen remotely operated doors and gates trimmed in barbed wire separate him from the outside; until his capture May 13 in Murray County, Ga., he was one of the Virginia Department of Correction's most wanted.
On Wednesday, he will face 27-year-old felony escape and assault charges in Chesapeake General District Court. Together they carry maximum penalties of 15 years behind bars, said Anne Coughlin, a University of Virginia law professor. It will be up to a parole board to decide whether he must finish the 10-year sentence for the robbery that put him in jail in the first place. He served less than two.
Except for a glimpse at the Georgia jailhouse, Richard Boucher has not seen his wife since the police carted them from their trailer, shocking the tiny town of Eton where they lived in the Appalachian Mountains.
They had been there almost since the beginning, scraping by as two people who dropped out of nowhere with nothing to do.
Richard Boucher, his long, unruly hair cut short since his arrest, nervously tapped his fingers at the bottom of the window. He didn't want to come across like a crazy person on an afternoon talk show. He wanted people to know this: Something traumatic happened while he was in jail that sent him fleeing south in the dark with little more than fishing line, a pocket knife and a few sets of clothing.
What that was might come out in court, he said, but until then he doesn't want to talk about it.
"It wasn't like I had to have a beer and a pizza," Richard Boucher said. "This is the way I thought I had to do this."
He can't remember when they got to Georgia, only that the weather was turning cold and he had big blisters on his feet. The car ran out of gas somewhere in North Carolina, so they'd sold it, bought camping gear and set out on foot, taking the Appalachian Trail for a while, then sticking to the highway, where people occasionally offered rides.
In Murray County, Ga., they got permission to camp at the Saddle Club, a place that hosted equestrian events. They'd planned to move on until a big storm left it damaged and the owners paid them to clean up. Then some club members offered them a place to stay in exchange for work and keeping an eye on the place.
They became Eric and Diane Coleman.
He missed his parents. She missed her mother. Each had a sister. They dared not contact them for fear of being caught. At Thanksgivings, Christmases and birthdays, the mood fell. They wondered if their families were well - or even alive.
"You know they're wondering the same thing," Boucher said.
He planned to stay gone for a decade, thinking that if he avoided trouble he could return to Chesapeake and finish his time.
"I know it sounds stupid," he said, and it never happened because life did.
The Bouchers did not think they would have a child. Years earlier, Debbie Boucher had carried twins nearly to term before losing them. But by the end of 1983, they were expecting.
They named her Pamela for Debbie Boucher's sister. "We never forgot."
The holidays got easier with their daughter 's birth, the loss of their families bearable. Daily struggles didn't.
It was, Richard Boucher said, like looking at your favorite food. Smelling it. Touching it. But not being able to take just one bite.
He helped build houses he couldn't live in. He watched people buy homes and cars and wished he could give his wife and child the things he thought they deserved. More than one holiday was celebrated with just a can of Spam.
He and Debbie Boucher never drove a car. They never owned anything they couldn't pay cash for.
He took jobs that paid under the table, some good, some not so. He chipped mortar off bricks and cinder blocks and broke down wooden pallets for $20 a day.
Hospitals weren't good for people like them. Bills were expensive and they didn't have insurance.
Debbie Boucher only went twice, in addition to the birth of their daughter. They paid in cash installments.
Richard Boucher never regained use of his right hand after a kitchen accident. There was no money for the surgery.
He and Debbie Boucher ate at a restaurant once, on an anniversary. It wasn't expensive, he said. He remembers he got the chicken.
As their daughter aged, she realized they weren't well off, that things didn't seem exactly right. They smoothed it over with white lies, Richard Boucher said. He had too many traffic violations to drive and Mama was too nervous.
"She was the one I tried to make sure I couldn't hurt," he said of his daughter. "I figured she'd forgive me on that."
Every six months or so, he thought about turning himself in.
Every day for 27 years, he got up and told himself he could get through one more. He wanted to see his daughter come of age, and he did. She married and had two babies. They called him Pop-Pop. He wanted to see them grow up.
Richard Boucher knew the sham could be over at any time.
Police once stopped him as he walked along the highway with the bookbag he always carried. They figured he was a transient. He explained he lived just up the road. That was always the end of it.
He never slept well. Noises made his heart pound.
When the police came for him at the trailer on Hooker Road, appearing in the woods with guns drawn, he thought they were looking for someone else. Then they used his real name. That one he hadn't heard in so long.
He wondered, in his soft, polite manner of speaking, how much longer he could have done it?
The carpet companies, Murray County's lifeblood, were laying people off. There wasn't much work for people like Richard Boucher. His blood pressure was high. He couldn't swing a hammer anymore.
It ended abruptly, perhaps for the best.
Police hauled him back to Virginia while his wife, daughter and grandkids stayed behind.
Debbie Boucher's mother and sister visited them over the Fourth of July.
Richard Boucher called his dad from jail.
His mother, he learned, died five years ago. He regrets that she never knew what had become of her son; that so many people expected the worst for so many years.
He still doesn't sleep well.
"There are too many things," he said. "I couldn't list them all. I'll never get that back."
Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5555, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com
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We can't put him back from whence he escaped.
What to do. What to do.
He escaped from Greenbrier Parkway's Camp 22. Camp 22 was torn down several years ago. The state sold the land to Chesapeake. We have to let him go because the jail is not available for him anymore. No?
Now that he is back in custody, doesn't Virginia have to fix his hand for him?
judge not that ye not be judge by the same judgemnet
Some times the best punishment is the personal diaster and suffering that happens from sheer consequences of the crime; In this case some would say stealing fredom. But how free was he indeed. Cain the brother of Able[Holy Bible(Genesis 4)] killed his brother out of jealousy. Cain did not have a good heart yet God had mercy on Cain after he pleaded with God that his plight was mor than he could bear. So If he can be given mercy Cain a muderer I believe this gentlemen can be given the same. We shouldn't find so much pleasure in some one elses suffering. He didn't live well by any means. He suffered daily with the thoughts of what he had done when it would end how it would end if ever, lying to his daughter, not providing well for his family. He said that he dicided to escape because of an undisclosed reason. Perhaps we should wait before stoning him. Prison is not the safest place in world and people seem not to care once your in there. After all Jesus forgave one of the two criminals being crusified with him. Peace be unto you and peace be mutiplied.
>tear< not!
Boucher's robbery arrest stemmed from an armed robbery of several sailors. He had already been in "the system" prior to that, using atleast 3 known aliases aside from "Eric Coleman". He slugged a prison guard during his escape, using a clothes iron as his weapon of choice. The man and his wife are both criminals. His wife just has never been caught before this. Do not tell me that while on the lam they never stole for food, clothing, etc. And yet some people think tear tear he had a hard life? He still needs to finish his first sentence and then the ones for aggrivated assault and escape. THEN the ones he racked up in Murray County for possession of firearm by convicted felon. What does it say for the many folks who actually do finish out their sentence, which are often even longer...? I feel for the daughter but not for the married couple.
Time Served
I would like to comment to all the posters who are in agreement to let this criminal go. This guy committed a felony, assaulted a prison guard and has been on the run for almost 30 years. Ask yourselves a question. If you had been the victim of this convicted felons crime, would you be as forgiving to just let him go after 27 years as an escapee and justice was not served? Just my thought.
Time Served
I agree, you do the crime you do the time, but in this case, the time he served on the LAM was puishment enough. The state of Virginia doesn't need the tax burden of having to house and feed another inmate. Let the man go, the past 27 years have been painful enough. What more can be done that hasn't already been done. Time has been served!
Huh?
You do the crime, you pay the time. ZERO tolerance for prison escapes. And why is it relevant that he didn't eat well or that he had no health insurance. He would have eaten well and had free medical in jail! He made the choice. It's his responsibility, and his alone. He owes his family a big apology. We owe them NOTHING>
20+ years on the run
He still has a sentence to complete plus escape charge and assault charge from escaping. He could have surrendered any time. The wife and daughter are the ones' to be pitied. They were forced into this isolation. He may be old and no longer a danger to anyone but the injured were not made "whole" nor how will this guy survive? ON WELFARE! May as well lock him up and not let him sponge off of the taxpayers while free.
If He'd Have Done His Time....
I can't help but think, if he had done his time, he's probably been finished with this whole thing about what, 17 years ago, perhaps more if he'd been paroled?
Seems he brought a lot of this misery on himself and caused a lot of pain to the victims of his crimes and the people who cared about him.....
He rolled the dice and got a 27 year-long self-imposed tourment of having to keep looking over his own shoulder, seems pretty dumb to me...
If he needs a bail bondsman...
I'll bond him out.
It would seem----------
It would seem that this guy didn't play by the rules, which got him sentenced to prison in the first place. Then he didn't like the prisons rules, so he escaped. He said it himself, he decided every day to go on and not give himself up. So now this touchy-feely story is somehow supposed to vindicate this guy? So he didn't get in trouble all those years -- isn't that what we expect from everyone? There are a lot of people in prison who never made but one mistake and they have to serve their time. He is no different, those are the rules. His choices have always been about him and what he wanted, with no regard for anyone else. Hopefully he'll have about twenty years to reflect on that!
Is this the best the Pilot can do for a Sunday Morning Wakeup!
I am not here to judge anyone. Isn't there someone out there doing something miraculous that deserves front page? As much as I am fed up with the Beach politics, at least you could have posted the one of a kind park that Bruce is designing for the oceanfront. A little something nice for a part of humanity that most people have little time for. Or what perhaps a volunteer of sorts or perhaps a college grad realizing their dreams. Pitiful front page news. At least it wasn't Michael Vick or Jackson.
As far as it goes ...
Very nice story, well-written, but it's clear that a lot about this guy has gone untold. An awful lot has been glossed over here.
Even working at subsistence jobs, this guy and his wife should have had more than a can of Spam on Christmas morning. They weren't paying taxes. No car payment or attendant expenses. Only one child, who's long been an adult and on her own. Lowest of all possible shelter costs. Heck, I know Haitian refugees who are poor, but live far better and even have cell phones.
I don't mean to pee on anybody's parade, but I'm guessing that the *whole* story about this guy would be a lot less sympathetic.
I'm an idiot
Ah heck, disregard my last comment about the murder stuff. I had this guy confused with another recently located fugitive.
Unreal
Unbelievably, this article actually did what it set out to do. That is, to make folks feel bad for a felon, a murderer, and a criminal. What about the family of the victim? What about the victim herself? This guy is worried about his mother not knowing where he was? How about the victim's mother not knowing where her daughter's killer was, free to walk around Virginia for 27 years?
I have little sympathy for this man, beyond what one human being feels for any other human being. He didn't make an amendment of life to become a productive member of society and atone for his crime, he went into hiding to avoid getting caught and avoid paying for his crime. That isn't something to commend or congratulate. Another criminal off the streets. Thank to the police, and here's hoping that the criminal justice system does its part.
Don’t feel sorry for him
He committed a crime; he needs to serve out his time like anyone else who breaks the law.
Good article
Granted the man is/was a criminal but what purpose would it serve to lock this guy up again. Doesn't appear to be a menace to society. Knowing the Commonwealth, they will want to make an example of him. Maybe the govenor can decide on this. We would like to hear the outcome of this one.
Does this guy need jail?
I don't think so. A murderer can get out of prison in 10 years. Will any of the parties, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the citizens of Virginia, or Richard, benefit from his being locked up? I don't think so. This fellow somehow has made a living, provided for his family, and stayed out of trouble for 27 years. I wonder how many felons are released from prison that can say they did that?
Different perspective
I have a different perspective than most of you who are commenting. As someone who has waited for 22 years for an unsolved murder to be solved, I want him to finish serving his sentence and to have time added on for escape.
The man not only robbed,he caused physical harm to two individuals. He struck the Coast Guard guy hard enough to require being hosptitalized. Then when he escaped prison,he took a tire iron to the head of the guard. Those two men and their families have waited 27 years for the sicko responsible for their assault to be captured and punished.
I urge the courts to not forget the assaulted men and to not go easy on him. So what if he had to watch his step for 27 years ? So what if his mother passed away without his knowing about it ? He brought it on himself ! Let's make this individuals nightmare come true and give him his FULL punishment he is due !!
DIFFRTRNT PERSPECTIVE
You make sound sense, today's court systems are a disgrace when it comea to dispensing punishnent. Like so many cases today, it is a revolving door.Do the crinw,forget the time,the judge will let you walk out,and you can laugh in his face,then go back and do something til it ramps up to a murder.THEN the judge puts you away---FOR THIRTY YEARS,WITH ALL BUT SIX MONRGS SUSPENDED.
Injurng 2 people that requires both to go to the hospital sounds pretty serious.Breaking out and being on the lam for 20+ years is a long time,he carried a big load on his shoulders, but he still needs the jail time to think LONG and HARD about those 20+ years,and to consider whether it was worth the freedom---and the agaony.
Seriously?
You're still talking about this? This is in the running for first place with useless never-ending coverage of dead pop stars.