Should She Pay?

'Marie Walsh kept a low profile for 32 years, trying to escape her past life as Susan LeFevre'

If you google this you can get the full story, but this poor lady was busted at 19 in Michigan for drug charges, and apparently her staunch Catholic family pressured her into pleading guilty, telling her to save them embarassment and take probation. Well, the judge didn't give her probation, he gave her 20 years in prison. After a year of prison, she was assisted by her grandfather and a friend and broke out. (Let me just say...can you imagine that conversation between her and her grandpa? I can totally see MY grandpa scheming an escape from the big house, but picturing this old crippled man sporting a walker and his orthopedic shoes driving the getaway car makes me giggle).

In any case, she hitches a ride to California with friends, and starts a whole new life, marries a man (doesn't tell him about her past life), has 3 kids, and now 32 YEARS LATER they catch her and are extraditing her back to Michigan for her hearing.

There are quite a few things that bother me about this story, but let me just focus on a couple of them. First of all, what kind of parents tell their kid to save them embarassment and take a consequence like that? If you're not ready to have your kids bring shame to your family, don't have kids---I think it's inevtible that your children at some point in their lives are going to make you look like the worst parent in the world. I know I did it to mine and I'm sure I'll be blessed with rebelious spirited kids myself.

Secondly, why in the world are we wasting resources to track down an escaped druggie from friggin' 30 years ago that's obviously learned her lesson and contributed to society? She isn't (and wasn't) dangerous to anybody else, was clever enough to make it by this long, I say live and let die. If anybody's to blame it's the dang prison who's security was shoddy enough that she literally walked through an open field, threw her jacket over the barbed wire fence and ran off. Take her escape up with them, and go find the people out there that escaped and actually pose a threat to the public.

The sweetest thing about this story is her husband, even after being shocked with this bombshell, is standing by her, saying she is a woman of integrity.