Parole board sets hearing for twice-caught Ohio ex-fugitive

COLUMBUS (AP) — A man who disappeared from a northern Ohio prison camp in 1959 while serving time for manslaughter and was found this year will get a public hearing with the board considering whether he should get parole.

Investigators who tracked down Frank Freshwaters in May say he was living off Social Security benefits under an alias at a weathered trailer in rural Brevard County, Fla. The 79-year-old widower was returned to Ohio and had a closed parole hearing in August.

A prisons spokeswoman says a full parole board hearing with testimony is scheduled Feb. 25.

Freshwaters’ son Jim Cox says he’s heartbroken his father remains incarcerated and will have to wait months more for a decision.

Freshwaters was caught once before, in West Virginia in 1975, but wasn’t extradited.