U.S. Marshals are soliciting the aid of the public to identify people pictured in newly uncovered photos. The people in the photos may have worked with or socialized with fugitive murderer Lester Eubanks, according to ABC News.
Per the report, authorities say Eubanks worked and lived in Los Angeles under the alias “Victor Young” after he escaped from the Ohio State Penitentiary, where he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life after murdering a 14-year-old girl in 1965.
Having remained hidden and illusive despite an active search spanning five decades, Eubanks has maintained his reputation as one of America’s most wanted criminals. The U.S. Marshals posted their highest-ever reward for information leading to the capture — $50,000, according to ABC News.
The long-lasting saga even inspired an ABC News podcast called “Have You Seen This Man,” which afforded Marshals more than 300 new leads.
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Deputy Marshal David Siler, leader of the manhunt to catch Eubanks, recalled to ABC News that some of the unearthed photos were shown to employees of a mattress factory where Eubanks allegedly worked.
Joy Springer, the woman in charge at the time, remembers that Eubanks was onboarded “right in the beginning of the waterbed era and we were going big guns.” She said to ABC, “You had a heartbeat, we’d hire you and put you to work.”
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According to the article, “Springer knew Eubanks as Victor Young and said that he worked hard, kept quiet, and rode a ten-speed bicycle to work. She said that when it rained, she would sometimes offer him a ride — but never all the way to his home.”
“We’re hoping that the viewers in Los Angeles are able to identify some of these people,” Siler told KABC, advising that there is no penalty for coming forward with information.
“We believe that he may have never left the greater Los Angeles area,” said Siler. “We know that he has a footprint there, we know that he has associates throughout the area. We just need to talk to those people.”
ABC noted that “one person still hoping for a breakthrough is Myrtle Carter, the surviving older sister of Mary Ellen Deener, Eubanks’ victim. Carter said Deener was a typical 14-year-old and news reports described her as a member of her middle school glee club who loved roller skating and harbored dreams of being a nun.”
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