With a chronic cough like wet gravel, with all his pills and ointments arrayed before him on his kitchen table, Robert Stackowitz looks like all of his seven decades. What he does not look like is a sophisticated criminal who escaped from a Georgia prison and eluded authorities for 48 years.
Even his “breakout” from a Carroll County work camp in 1968 was so simple it was almost comical. No tunneling or chiseling involved, according to Stackowitz, who says he was such a good mechanic that prison officials allowed him to work off site on county school buses parked nearby. They even provided a vehicle for him to get there.
“One morning I got in the truck and drove away,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The law finally caught up to the fugitive in Connecticut Monday. On Saturday, the 71-year-old was out on bail thanks to some friends in this town who, despite just learning of his checkered past, have stuck by his side.
Speaking in his kitchen Saturday after he was released on bond, Stackowitz said he regrets the robbery that put him away half a century ago, calling it the “dumbest thing I ever did in my life.”
Still, he believes his good behavior since has proven he is a rehabilitated, law-abiding, taxpaying citizen. And given his health, no threat to society. “I don’t even think I’ve gotten a ticket,” he said of his years as a fugitive.
More than anything, Stackowitz fears that extradition to Georgia will kill him. He suffers from congestive heart disease, bladder cancer, diabetes, skin problems and swelling in his legs.
“Why they would ever want me back, I can’t understand,” he said of Georgia authorities. “I’m a medical nightmare.”
But want him, they do.
‘I feel bad about being caught’
When Stackowitz chose this laid-back little lake town to hide out, he got lucky. Nestled in the rolling green hills between New York and Connecticut, Sherman is a quiet hamlet of only 3,600 people. People here don’t know the Robert Stackowitz who broke into a Carroll County home and held the owner against his will while robbing the place. They know Bob Gordon, his invented name, the guy who lives on Route 39 and fixes probably half the boats on Candlewood Lake.
“I was Gordon. That’s who they knew me as,” he said. “I don’t feel bad about lying. I feel bad about being caught.”
This should have been a great weekend for Stackowitz. Temperatures are warming into the seventies and people are dropping their boats in the lake. Come Memorial Day, that first big breath of summer, the population swells as people settle into their getaway homes.
Actually, Stackowitz hardly does any of the work himself. He has two guys who work for him. He stands on the deck of his gray wooden home and oversees the operation, diagnosing the boat engines, ordering the parts, taking care of business.
Most of his time is spent at the little kitchen table, with its medicines and creams, the little TV, a VCR and DVD player. He uses a mechanical chair lift to reach the kitchen from downstairs. And he sleeps in an old living room recliner.
“That because when I lay down I have trouble breathing,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table.
Saturday was his first day home after nearly a week in jail. While he was talking to the AJC, his girlfriend of 21 years came up the stairs and hugged him, then started sobbing.
Cindy Derby has been on vacations with him to Lake George, spent hours with him on the big lake, and shared so much of her life growing up in Sherman. Stackowitz never told her about his prison escapades.
“I’ve been in shock all week,” Derby said. “He never mentioned Georgia. I’m not mad at him.”
‘He committed a violent crime’
Even now, many in this town support him. He’s lived here for more than 30 years, and they think he’s proven himself a good citizen. They think the law should have left him alone.
“He’s a nice guy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” said Bill Schaniel, the meat manager at the Sherman IGA grocery. “One time he drove by some town workers out in the heat, and he offered to bring them back some water. That’s the kind of guy he is.”
On Saturday, Stackowitz asserted that he had been the subject of heavy-handed Southern justice in 1966, and many of his neighbors seemed to agree. He escaped two years into his 17-year sentence.
“I don’t think I owed them that many years,” he said.
Some law enforcement officials, as you might imagine, see it differently. They’re proud of catching the fugitive, and they think his capture sends a message to everyone else on the lam.
“He committed a violent crime. It does not matter if it’s 10 years ago or 20 or 40,” said Keith Lank, the special agent in charge of the Fugitive Apprehension Unit of the Georgia Corrections Department. His unit helped track down Stackowitz. “You can run but you can’t hide.”
On the day he was arrested, Stackowitz had three boats in the front yard. If people here are mad at him for anything, it’s that he’s not around to fix their boats. Over at Rizzo’s Garage, owner David Schneiderbeck figures he’ll be fixing more boats now. But he hates fixing boats.
“He was the boat guy,” Schneiderbeck said. “He’s a very good mechanic. He always helped us out when we needed it.”
‘You gotta feel bad for him’
As news spreads across the country of Stackowitz’ capture, the people here — retired rich people, local workers, celebrities fleeing the spotlight — are perhaps the most surprised.
“Holy crap. This is my neighbor,” said Walter Panek, a retired New York ad exec who came here nine years ago. “But you gotta feel bad for him. He seems like a heck of good guy.”
This is a town with one traffic light, one general store, one school, one auto mechanic — all clustered around the town hall and volunteer fire department. There’s only one cop, called the resident state trooper.
More than that, it’s a place where nobody asks too many questions. Celebrities come here to get away. Mikhail Baryshnikov had a house here, and fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg is not far away. Nobody pesters them. They’re treated like anybody else.
“It’s always been an unspoken rule,” said Michael Saraceno, Sherman’s resident state trooper. “Whether you’re famous or not, nobody bothers you.”
Don Lowe, one of the three selectmen who handle just about all the town’s business, lives next door to Daryl Hall, the musician from the group Hall and Oates. He sees Hall walking down the street and shopping at the Sherman IGA. Lowe plans to play a little music at Hall’s club nearby, called Daryl’s House.
But he never bugs him.
“Someone could hide away in Sherman,” Lowe said.
‘I could have called my mother’
Many people here have stories about Bob Gordon, the big guy with the big heart.
“He did me a favor and I didn’t even know him,” said Mimi Brown.
After her husband died years ago, Brown discovered that someone was plowing snow from her driveway. She started asking around.
“He had heard about my husband and knew I had young children,” Brown said as she sat with her grandson on the little beach by the lake. It’s not far from the ramp where Stackowitz was often seen hauling boats in and out of the water. “He never asked anything for it.”
That was not the Robert Stackowitz of 1966. That year, Stackowitz and two other men broke into a home, terrifying the owner as they robbed the place. The two men held the homeowner at gunpoint and tied him up, but police caught them minutes after the crime.
“I needed money,” Stackowitz recalled. “I could have called my mother. She would have sent some.”
He was sentenced to a minimum security Carroll County prison work camp, first on a road gang and then the mechanic detail that allowed him to break out in 1968. He jumped on a plane to Connecticut, heading back home. As he got away, perhaps he listened to the No. 1 song in the country at the time: the Rascals’ “People Got to be Free.”
He found work at car dealerships. Then he settled in Sherman, setting up his boat repair business. At one point, he taught auto repair at the nearby tech school.
For years he lived looking over his shoulder. He was always careful, not to speed, not to do anything wrong.
Life, he said, “went from careful to normal.”
Life in Sherman makes you forget
Normal seems, well, normal in Sherman. Take one morning this past week. The morning rush to the IGA grocery is over. Owner Mike Luzi has a few hours before the lunch crowd, so he makes phone calls to bring in more food, expecting the warm days will bring up the weekenders.
Don Lowe, the selectman, heads over to town hall to sign some checks.
Walt Panek stands on the wooden deck of his house on a hill, looking over the lake ringed by mountains and trees as far as the eye can see. Sometimes he sees people landing their sea planes on the water. He loves watching the kids take the tall jump off “Chicken Rock” into the water.
He’s heading off to the IGA. Loves the three potato salad.
Stackowitz admits he got sloppy in propping up his fake identity. He listed his real name on local property tax records, and did the same when he applied for Social Security.
That’s what Sherman can do to you, lull you into thinking you haven’t a care in the world.
“I figured if they wanted to catch me, they would have,” Stackowitz said.
But in an age where everybody leaves digital footprints, those things proved to be his undoing.
‘I knew this day would come’
About five months ago, Georgia’s Fugitive Apprehension Unit was looking into some cold cases and came upon Stackowitz. Some hits came up.
“He was using his real name,” said Lank, the head of the unit. “I guess if you’re on the run for 48 years, you figure the law is not looking for you anymore.”
The unit reached out to Robert Jones, warden at the Carroll County Correctional Institution, asking for Stackowitz’ old files. The timing was serendipitous, Jones said, in that his staff had just placed those files in a group to be destroyed.
He sent Lank some old photos and the paperwork. Lank thought the old and new photos matched up pretty well.
Michael Saraceno, Sherman’s state trooper, knows Stackowitz from around town. He knows two things about him: He’s the boat guy, and he’s never caused trouble. When time came for the 8 a.m. arrest of Stackowitz on Monday, Saraceno made sure he was first at the door. That way Stackowitz would see a familiar face. Stackowitz let in the other officers without incident.
“I knew this day would come,” he told them.
He sat down at his kitchen table in his sweatpants and a T-shirt. He asked whether he could put on some decent clothes before they headed out.
They let him.
‘He’s kept clean for 48 years’
Stackowitz’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, said he will ask Georgia officials to forgive the rest of his client’s sentence and not add any charges for his escape. He said Stackowitz is ill and that after 48 years of obeying the law and paying his taxes, he has shown he is rehabilitated.
On Friday, Carroll County District Attorney Pete Skandalakis made clear he wants no part of this case. He does not plan to file additional charges on the escape.
“The whole purpose of prison is rehabilitation,” he said. “This man has obviously been rehabilitated. He’s kept clean for 48 years.”
Would he consider commuting the entire sentence?
“I would consider it,” he said.
But it’s not up to him, Skandalakis stressed. It will be up to the Georgia Department of Corrections and the Board of Pardons and Paroles, he said.
Late Friday, the board issued a statement saying it will review Stackowitz’ case upon his return to Georgia. The board will consider the statutes at the time of his conviction in 1966. It will also consider the circumstances of his arrest, conviction and escape.
And, the board said, it will consider his conduct over the past 48 years.
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