Woman tries to build relationship with fugitive father

Her father was on the run for 34 years before turning himself in.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Carrie Caudill Harmon was a month from her third birthday when her father became a fugitive, walking away from a prison honor farm and his family.
Thirty-four years later, Jackie Darrell Caudill returned, turning himself in as his daughter stood by his side.
Harmon said she'd like to try to rebuild a relationship with her father, now in the North Central Correctional Institution in Marion with hopes of being released soon.
"If he gets out, we could try," the Sandusky woman told The Columbus Dispatch for a story on Sunday. "I'd like to make some memories. I'm 37 years old, and there aren't any."
Harmon, raped during her father's absence, said some childhood memories were lost after the attack. But her 84-year-old grandmother, Bonnie Caudill, remembers how the girl used to ask if they'd ever see him again.
Caudill escaped from the Osborn Honor Farm in Sandusky with two other inmates Nov. 12, 1971. He had served two years of a 10- to 25-year sentence for armed robbery.
Worked as truck driver
While the other inmates were caught, Caudill renamed himself, got a new Social Security number and worked as a truck driver, living in Texas, Arizona, California and Florida. He was married and divorced and later told police his only run-ins with the law were on traffic offenses.
At 59, Caudill resurfaced to his family last year. When he arrived at his mother's home in Clanton, Ala., where she moved after her retirement, he learned that his sister and sole sibling died of cancer at age 36 and his father died six years ago. He had never met his 17-year-old grandson or 12-year-old granddaughter.
Bonnie Caudill also told her son about Harmon's rape.
"It about killed him," she said. "There was misery on his face."
Harmon was 26 when she was raped in April 1995 after she left a Sandusky bar, where her rapist worked as a bouncer, police said. Her attacker has been sentenced to up to 180 years in state prison in the attack.
During the investigation, Harmon told Capt. Paul Sigsworth of the Erie County Sheriff's Office about her father, whose conviction stemmed from the robbery of a bar in 1969 by a gang called the Misfits.
Caudill eventually turned himself in to Sigsworth, with help from his daughter.
"I had told her, 'If you ever hear from him, let me know.' Well, I'll be damned if she didn't," Sigsworth said. "She brought him right down to the station."
Went to visit daughter
Before surrendering Dec. 7, Caudill left Alabama to visit his daughter in Sandusky, where he had lived when he was young.
"He just apologized," she said. "He said that he was sorry, that if he could do it all over, he would."
Caudill filed a clemency action Dec. 28, according to state corrections officials. In March, the parole board recommended that Gov. Bob Taft grant Caudill a commutation, which would make him immediately eligible for parole.
Harmon, who visits her father regularly in prison, said she's hopeful.
"Everybody thinks I'm so strong," she said. "Tell you what: I'm scared."