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Escaped Murderer Found After 41 Years

George Wright hijacked flight with Black Liberation Army to flee U.S.

George Wright, 68, a convicted murderer who escaped a New Jersey prison 41 years ago and eventually fled the U.S. with the help of the Black Liberation Army, has been found in Portugal, federal authorities said Tuesday. In 1970, Wright had been serving a 30-year sentence for the 1962 robbery and murder of a World War II vet when he escaped prison by stealing the warden’s car. Two years later, Wright—dressed as a priest and with a gun hidden in the cut-out parts of a Bible—and several others hijacked a Detroit-Miami flight. They demanded $1 million in ransom. After receiving the money—the largest ransom demand ever at the time—Wright and the others fled to Algeria, and while some of the hijackers were arrested in Paris a few years later, Wright managed to evade capture—until he began contacting his relatives in New Jersey a few years ago.