- So glad you guys picked me for this one.
You know, the dangerous
member of the editorial team.
(goofy music)
Admit it, there's something thrilling
about watching law enforcement
hunting down a violent
criminal on the loose.
The drama, the expense, and the scale
makes it almost impossible to look away.
So, here are some of the
biggest manhunts of all time.
Everyone knows that John Wilkes Booth
assassinated President Abraham Lincoln,
but did you know it took 12 days
before Federal troops found him?
Even with a $100,000
reward for his capture,
which is like $1.4 million today,
and a broken leg,
Booth evaded the authorities
by hiding in the woods
and holing up in a barn in Virginia.
He refused to surrender when found,
so the barn was set afire.
Now, accounts differ, but most
agree that Booth died there,
either from his burns, or a gunshot wound.
Outlaw Ned Kelly started off fighting
for poor Australian colonists
struggling under British rule,
but when he was accused of
killing three policemen,
Kelly and his crew hid
in the Australian bush.
Not content to lay low, the
group robbed several banks
and burned their mortgage contracts.
When the police surrounded
Kelly's hideout,
he greeted them in a gigantic suit
of homemade bulletproof steel armor.
He was no Tony Stark, however,
and neglected to cover his legs.
The cops immobilized Kelly
and he was hanged for his crimes in 1880.
It took a two month, international manhunt
to capture the man
who assassinated Martin
Luther King, Jr. in 1968.
When the murder weapon
was found on a sidewalk,
investigators traced it
to an Eric Starvo Galt.
Fingerprints revealed Galt was
an alias for James Earl Ray,
and the FBI traced his
laundry tags, pliers,
and Ford Mustang from Atlanta to LA.
Agents sifting through 175,000 passports
tracked Ray to Toronto, Portugal,
and London's Heathrow Airport,
where he was finally arrested in 1969.
One of the longest manhunts in US history
was the 18 years it took
to catch the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.
Using homemade explosives,
Kaczynski mailed bombs
that killed three people and wounded 23.
Isolating himself in
a log cabin in Montana
made Kaczynski hard to catch,
but he couldn't help sending
handwritten manifestos
to the media.
When his brother saw one,
he recognized the style
and alerted authorities, who
arrested Kaczynski in 1996.
LA cop Christopher
Dorner was fired in 2013
for falsely accusing a fellow officer
of kicking an arrestee.
Dorner used social media
to denounce his removal,
and then went on a shooting spree
against police officers and their families
that killed four people and wounded three.
For two weeks, Dorner fled
from California to Mexico,
but when he was cornered in a cabin
filled with tear gas and
fire, Dorner committed suicide
by a self inflicted gunshot wound.
Which manhunt glued you
the most to the media?
Let us know in the comments,
and subscribe for more.
And for more infamous manhunts,
from the Boston Marathon bombers
to escaped IRA prisoners,
check out our original article
on HowStuffWorks.com
