Richard Lee Mc Nair - Overview

Overview

On November 1987, while attempting a burglary in Minot, North Dakota, McNair was surprised by two men and murdered one of them. McNair's murder of Jerry Thies occurred at a grain elevator operated by the Farmers Union Elevator Co. while McNair was a sergeant posted at the nearby Minot Air Force Base. A second man was shot four times, but survived. When the police called McNair in for questioning, McNair surrendered a concealed handgun. He was later sentenced to two life sentences for murder and attempted murder, and a thirty-year prison sentence for burglary.

McNair's first escape attempt occurred at the Minot municipal police station in 1988, shortly after he had been arrested. McNair's first period as a fugitive lasted only a few hours, after which McNair was quickly recaptured. After his initial arrest, McNair was handcuffed to a chair and left in a room with three detectives. McNair used lip balm, which he had in his pocket, as a lubricant to squeeze his hands free from the handcuffs. McNair then led police on a footchase through the town, eventually being chased up a three-flight stairway in an effort to evade capture. After becoming surrounded by police on the roof of a three-story building downtown, McNair attempted to jump to a tree branch to escape arrest, but the branch broke. McNair landed on the ground and hurt his back, after which he was easily apprehended. After McNair was released from the hospital, he was moved to the Ward County Jail in Minot. In February 1988, sheriff's deputies discovered another escape attempt when, after moving McNair to another cell, they found two cinder blocks partially chiseled out from the cell in which he was being held.

In October 1992 McNair escaped with two other prisoners from the North Dakota State Penitentiary in Bismarck, North Dakota by crawling through a ventilation duct. One of the prisoners who escaped with McNair was apprehended within hours, and the other within days. After his escape, McNair grew out his hair and dyed it blonde in an attempt to disguise himself. Much of his time on the lam was spent roaming the United States in stolen cars. McNair remained free for ten months, until he was eventually arrested in Grand Island, Nebraska in 1993. After his second recapture, the North Dakota Department of Corrections deemed McNair a problematic inmate, and requested that he be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. McNair remained in federal custody until his final escape, over a decade later.