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| Fugitive returns for love, finds jail cell |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 11/05/2001 |
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After 14 years as a fugitive, David Tankersley gave up his freedom for love. Tankersley, 49, skipped out on a temporary release from an Oregon prison in 1987. He moved to Alaska, got a job at an electrical-supplies plant and fell in love with a former chef at the Alaska governor's mansion. But he was readmitted to the Oregon prison system last week after he tried to drive from Alaska to meet his girlfriend in Arizona. Tankersley must serve the remaining 3-1/2 months of his sentence for burglary and theft before he can marry his sweetheart, Carol Embleton, prison officials said. In the 1980s, Oregon sometimes issued temporary releases to prison inmates to make room for more serious offenders. Tankersley, who was part of such an arrangement, was supposed to show up every night at a Salem prison after a day spent looking for work. On April 7, 1987, he left and didn't come back. He was picked up on a new burglary charge in Alaska in June 1987 and again for theft in 1994. Oregon knew about those charges but didn't claim him. 'The governor's office didn't have the funds at the time to bring him back,' said Teri Rice, an inspector who hunts escapees. Tankersley was paroled on the Alaska charges. By the late 1990s, he worked at Delta Alaska Wholesale, an electrical-supplies plant in Juneau. When Embleton decided to move to Arizona, Tankersley asked Oregon for leniency so he could drive through the state to reunite with his girlfriend. 'They wrote back and said, 'If you come through here, we're going to nail you,'' Embleton said. 'He said, 'I'm going to brave it because I want to be with you.' ' |
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