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Department of Public Officials whittles down list of long-term prison escapees

INTRO – The state Department of Public Safety says 43 long-term escapees from the North Carolina prison system have either been captured or confirmed dead. George Olsen has more.

The Department of Public Safety worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the state’s outstanding escape cases. Of the 43 accounted for, 15 are incarcerated out of state while 18 are confirmed deceased though about half of those a death certificate has yet to be issued. The initiative lowers the number of long-term escapees by about 30 percent. The Department of Public Safety also released a list of its 12 most wanted long-term escapees, one which goes back to 1976. Among those are Stanley Rogers, missing since 1996 after a 1994 conviction in Carteret County for Robbery with a dangerous weapon, and Linda Williams, who escaped in 1979 following being sentenced to up to 40 years imprisonment two years earlier in Duplin County for armed robbery. I’m George Olsen.

George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.