They didn’t catch me because I was tough. They caught me because I was an engineer.
When they finally arrested me in Lackawanna, NY, they didn’t just find a criminal. They found a walking technical violation.
I wasn’t a thug who kicked down doors. I was “The Kid.” The specialist. I drove a 1970 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, “Lucerne Aqua Fire Mist,” that was more spaceship than car .
I had that car wired for sound. I had police scanners hard-wired into the power train so I knew the cops were coming before they put their donuts down. I had a .25 Browning Semi-Automatic with the serial numbers machined off—not filed, machined.
But the thing that really pissed them off? The barrel was threaded for a silencer. They tore that car apart looking for it. They never looked up the tailpipe, where it was hanging on a coat hanger.
That engineering brain is what got me the title “One Man Crime Spree” from Judge Penny Wolfgang. But it’s also what saved my life when I faced “The Big Bitch”… 25 years to Life.
When I hit Wende Correctional Facility (Attica reception), I was labeled 85C0177. On the Ides of March, 1985, I got a letter saying the love of my life, Mary Ellen, had overdosed.
I snapped. I beat the steel walls until my hands were hamburger. The Cell Extraction Team came for me… 8 guards in full riot gear, shields, and batons.
I didn’t have a weapon. I had rage. I backed into the corner and asked them one question:
“WHO is going to be the FIRST MFcker through that gate?”.
They didn’t come in.
That night, the criminal died, and the survivor was born. I did 1,500 pushups a day. I turned my mind from breaking laws to fixing machines. I went from a cell block to being a top-tier Control Systems Engineer for 35 years.
I built my life back the same way I built those silencers: piece by piece, with absolute precision.
