PREVIOUS ESCAPES
There were countless escapes from the West Virginia Penitentiary. Some means of escape were going over the tall walls with rope ladders, digging under the walls burrowed ten feet deep into the earth, through the Wagon Gates, dressed as women, one was even buried underneath a pile of stinky garbage in the outgoing garbage truck. One inmate attempted a creative escape. He fashioned a hot air balloon out of mattress covers and took it to the top of the Industry Building. His escape was not successful as he couldn’t get it airborne. His attempt, as well has his spirit, deflated.
While the inmates supplied the labor to build the gothic like architecture of the penitentiary from 1866 to 1870, there were 103 escapes and forty-six were never captured. According to The Tour at the West Virginia Penitentiary, there were 538 escapes from 1960 to 1995.
In the late 60’s, prisoners who escaped were required to wear gray shirt and gray pants upon their return. The shirt had two white patches on front and one white patch on back that measured twelve by eighteen inches. The purpose of the patches was so Correctional Officers in the towers could easily spot them and watch them carefully. When a new inmate asked what the patches meant, he was told that those inmates were E.T.’s. Inmates with ‘escape tendencies’.
Camp Fair Chance, the 212-acre prison farm, had 160 inmates supervised by only four Correctional Officers. Since the escapes occurred frequently and were so easy, the farm was mocked as “Camp Sure Chance.” Those who did escape from Camp Fair Chance were rebuked by the other inmates who successfully escaped from the penitentiary. The Camp Fair Chance evaders were told, “You didn’t escape, you just walked off. You are a ‘walk-off’.”
There were many other notable escapes but one fascinating one was perpetrated by Fred Hamilton, Tomie Mollohan, and David Williams. All three inmates were convicted of murder and serving life sentences.
FRED HAMILTON
Frederick Dean Hamilton was born on January 22, 1958 in Greenfield, Ohio. As a young man, he excelled athletically. During Fred’s senior year of high school, he was ranked the third best golfer in the state of Ohio. Guy Sivert, the golf coach for Davis and Elkins College, recruited him on a full scholarship. Fred’s future was bright.
Blessed with athletic talent and a gregarious, popular young man in college, Fred appeared as if he had a perfect life. Something snapped within him when he was nineteen years-old and he dropped out of college and began committing crimes. During his malicious six-week stint, Fred kidnapped car salesman Robert Kamauff of Cumberland, Maryland. He didn’t harm Kamauff and eventually released him on a deserted Maryland road.
Fred was arrested on October 12, 1978 for armed robbery and kidnapping when a stolen orange corvette was found in front of his house. He was initially housed in the Randolph County Jail. Two days later, Fred was taken to the Tucker County Jail by West Virginia State Trooper Bruce Brown. At the Parson, West Virginia jailhouse, Fred began devising a plan on how to escape and became unruly. Another State Trooper, Corporal Marshall Davisson stepped in to assist Trooper Brown in subduing the cantankerous young man.
Fred pushed Trooper Brown aside and quickly snatched Trooper Davissons’ .357 caliber handgun from his holster. Both officers immediately grabbed Fred and two shots rang out. The first shot fired struck Corporal Davisson’s metal belt buckle and didn’t injure him.
The second shot Fred fired hit Trooper Brown in the chest causing him to stagger to the nearby stoop where he collapsed. Four hours later, he breathed his last breath. When Tucker County Sheriff Darl Pine saw the commotion, he fired at Fred and struck him in the leg. Once Fred was hit, he stopped fighting and surrendered to them.
In a matter of several minutes, Fred’s bright future drastically dimmed. Once a gregarious, likable college student, now a convicted cop killer. Fred’s impulsive violent choice robbed Trooper Brown, a young man only 25 years old of his future.
Fred had previously escaped from the penitentiary in July 1984 while being medically treated at the Reynolds Memorial Hospital in Glen Dale, West Virginia. When he exited the restroom in the prison ward of the hospital, he snatched a walkie-talkie from a correctional officer and absconded down a fire escape. He hid along Little Grave Creek and then surrendered to law enforcement authorities three days later.
Inmate #3568074, Frederick Dean Hamilton, is now incarcerated at Mount Olive Correctional Complex in Montgomery, West Virginia.
TOMIE MOLLOHAN
Tomie Lee Mollohan was born in Miami, Florida on March 10, 1942 and eventually traveled up north to the Mountain State of West Virginia. He earned money by doing odd jobs for people and had a mechanical aptitude to fix things. Unfortunately, Tomie became tired of making a meager living and made a tragic choice.
While milling around in Brounland, West Virginia, a small unincorporated town just thirteen miles southwest of Charleston, Tomie murdered Cebert Pauley. Tomie was staying in his cabin and on June 13, 1973, Pauley was discovered dead. His cabin was ransacked and his trouser pockets turned inside out. Pauley was known to carry a large amount of cash in his pants and that was missing when his body was found.
Tomie’s fingerprints were found on the outside of a can of potted meat inside of the cabin. There were several witnesses that placed Tomie in the vicinity of the cabin before the murder. Tomie was arrested on March 19, 1973 in Manchester, New Hampshire by the police. West Virginia State Troopers Haynes and Shaw were sent to transport him back for trial.
During the trip back, Tomie confessed to the troopers he was the one who murdered Cebert Pauley according to the court case, State v. Mollohan, no. 13927. Tomie later recanted his statement but the court felt there was sufficient evidence to convict him. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Sadly, this wasn’t the first time Tomie took someone’s life. In Bluefield, West Virginia, there had been a widely publicized unsolved murder that occurred on December 28, 1972. 66-year-old, Mary Osborne, a member of the First Church of God on South Street, helped clean the church. She was found at the church savagely beaten to death with a hammer.
Tomie testified he took the bus and traveled through Bluefield the day of the murder but had not gone to the church. The Mercer County Prosecutor stated the church is only fifty feet from the bus terminal. In September 2017, the F.B.I. was able to close this cold case by connecting Tomie’s fingerprints near the scene of the crime. Tomie was convicted of this murder as well.
The greenhouse getaway was not the first time Tomie escaped the penitentiary. He, David Williams, and Bobby Stacy, who killed a Huntington police officer in 1982, escaped on April 3, 1988. They broke into the basement of the old Administration building and found bolt cutters in a metal locker. They then jumped through a side window and landed behind a large ventilation unit that was being installed. When the coast appeared clear, they ran to the chain link fence along Jefferson Avenue and cut their way to freedom.
When Tomie left the penitentiary, he headed south to a town called Cameron, which is approximately nineteen miles away. He had been spotted a few times and police found lean-to shelters he probably built by Fork Ridge. He also broke into at least two homes where he stole guns, blankets and clothing. At one of the homes, he left a note which detailed what he stole and that when he got some money, he would pay them back.
Two weeks after escaping, Tomie was almost captured near Beeler’s Station off of U.S. Route 250. Marshall County Deputy Denise Hart saw him with a suitcase and stopped him asking for identification. While she checked his identification, he ran into a thick wooded area and escaped. Deputy Hart fired five shots at him but missed. Tomie was apprehended on May 9, 1988 by Cameron Police Chief Charles Kotson.
Tomie returned to the West Virginia Penitentiary until his next escape in 1992. After his capture then, he did not escape again and died at the Mount Olive Correctional Complex in Montgomery, West Virginia.
DAVID WILLIAMS
David Williams was a hard-working coalminer who kept to himself. However, the terrible choices of one evening changed his future. David and an accomplice crossed the line of civility and committed a horrific crime.
On Sunday, December 7, 1980, Harold Testerman returned home to Marytown in McDowell County. He had been hunting and he told his neighbor he would be going to a wake of a neighbor at approximately 5:30 p.m. But his truck remained in his drive-way all day which caused suspicion.
At 11:15 p.m., a neighbor saw two people recklessly driving away from Testerman’s house. Fifteen minutes later, another neighbor reported a fire at Testerman’s house. After the fire was extinguished, the firefighters and police noticed the house was extremely disorderly as desks and drawers were tossed haphazardly through the rooms. Then there was a ghastly discovery of the charred remains of Testerman in the living room.
At Testerman’s autopsy, the coroner, Dr. Ivin Sopher, revealed his cause of death was severe head injuries with a blunt object. He was alive when the fire began but would have passed away because of the intensity of his wounds. Several witnesses came forward and stated that David Williams and Floyd Franklin had been seen at Testerman’s house after he returned from hunting.
Floyd Franklin was arrested first and charged with murder, arson, and robbery. Franklin admitted to stealing from Testerman but claimed he had nothing to do with the fire or the murder. In April 1981, Franklin is convicted of charges of robbery but acquitted of the murder and arson charges. Franklin received forty years in the penitentiary.
Williams could not be found at first but was tracked down to his family’s house in Big Jenny Hollow in McDowell County on January 16, 1981. When the police arrived at the residence, they were told he was not there. They did consent to a search of the property and Williams was found hiding under a bed in one of the bedrooms.
When Williams was tried, he was convicted of first-degree murder, arson, and robbery. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Williams constantly attempted to escape in the penitentiary. In 1983, he tried to climb over the wall by Tower 4 with a rope fashioned from a sheet. In 1985, a plot was discovered where he was going to escape from the prison dining hall. He, Mollohan, and Stacy were successful in the 1988 escape but he was captured in McDowell County shortly after they escaped.
It has been reported that David William committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell at the Mount Olive Correctional Complex on December 18, 2018.
