'Real-life Shawshank Redemption' prison escapee recaptured after 56 years

Frank Freshwaters, who was imprisoned in Ohio jail used to film the Shawshank Redemption, escaped in 1959 after earning the trust of guards

A convict who was once imprisoned at the Ohio prison used to film The Shawshank Redemptionhas been recaptured after 56 years on the run.

In a case bearing remarkable similarities to the critically acclaimed 1994 film, Frank Freshwaters, 79, had "quickly earned the trust of prison officials" before escaping jail in 1959, according to Peter Elliott, the US Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio.

But unlike the fictional Andy Dufresne, played by Tim Robbins in the film, who was last seen enjoying freedom on a beach in Mexico, Freshwaters has been caught by the authorities and returned to jail, after a ruse to get his fingerprints led to his arrest in Florida this week.

Freshwaters was convicted of manslaughter for killing a pedestrian with a vehicle in July 1957, and his initially suspended sentence of one to 20 years in prison was imposed in 1959 after he violated his probation by driving and getting a driver's licence, according to the marshals and old court documents they provided.

He was imprisoned at the old Ohio State Reformatory before being moved to a lower-security camp, from where he escaped in September 1959, the statement said.

The details of his escape have not been divulged, though it is not thought that he tunneled out using a rock hammer, as his fictional counterpart did.

His time on the run was interrupted in 1975, when he was arrested on the Ohio warrant by the sheriff's office in West Virginia.

When the governor there refused to send him back to Ohio, he was freed and disappeared again, the marshals said.

An investigation by a deputy marshal assigned this year to target cold cases led authorities to Florida, where Freshwaters was living as William Harold Cox, the statement said.

Freshwaters admitted his true identity when authorities confronted him on Monday, according to the US Marshals Service and deputies in Brevard County, Florida.

Marshals in Ohio had sought help from deputies there, and they created a ruse to get him to sign papers so they could check his fingerprints, which matched the decades-old arrest, said Major Tod Goodyear.

"We couldn't go with a picture and see if it's that guy," Goodyear said. "You look different than you do 50 years ago."

The man sent to the Ohio State Reformatory in 1959 had short, dark hair in his black-and-white mugshot. Now he has a white beard, a ponytail and glasses and lived in a weathered trailer in a remote area surrounded by palmettos and very few neighbours.

He had retired from a job as a truck driver and was living off Social Security benefits, Goodyear said.

He had left clues about his identity over the past 56 years, and investigators traced those to his Florida doorstep, said US Marshal Pete Elliott in Cleveland. He wouldn't discuss specifics.

The Brevard County Sheriff's Office said he was jailed under the name Harold F. Freshwater and was ordered held without bond because of his status as an out-of-state fugitive. Court records listed no attorney for him.

He declined to talk to reporters and remained jailed on Tuesday night, said Cpl. Dave Jacobs.

The Shawshank Redemption film, based on a 1982 Stephen King novella, is set in a prison in Maine, but was filmed at the Ohio State Reformatory.