10 Menacing Prison Escapees Who Continued Committing Crimes

6 /10 Vassilis Palaiokostas

For the kidnapping of Alexander Haitoglou, Vassilis Palaiokostas was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2000.

Palaiokostas escaped his confinement in June 2006 after two of his accomplices used a hijacked helicopter to fly him out of jail. He was recaptured in August 2008.

About five months later, Palaiokostas escaped again by climbing a rope ladder to a helicopter as it flew over the prison courtyard.

In October 2010, he allegedly robbed two banks on the same day. There is currently a €1 million bounty for information leading to his arrest.

5 /10 John Dillinger

On September 6, 1924, John Dillinger and an accomplice robbed a grocery store and struck the owner’s head with a cloth-wrapped bolt.

He was sentenced to 10 – 20 years in prison but paroled on May 10, 1933. Almost immediately after his release, Dillinger robbed a bank in Bluffton, Ohio.

He was arrested on September 22, escaped on October 12, and again was involved in multiple bank robberies and murders.

His subsequent arrest happened on January 25, 1934, in Tucson, Arizona, and yet again, he escaped in early March. Dillinger was shot to death by three FBI agents on July 22.

4 /10 Frank Abagnale

Starting at the age of 15, Frank Abagnale learned how to pose as a teacher, doctor, pilot, attorney, undercover prison inspector, and so on.

Check forgery was a piece of cake for him, too. In 1969, he was finally captured in France. He served time in France and Sweden for six months each, then was deported to the United States, where he received 12 years sentence in federal prison.

Abagnale escaped twice, first while being deported to the United States and second when awaiting trial at the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta in 1971 by posing as an undercover prison inspector.

3 /10 George Rivas Of The Texas 7

A small group of inmates known as The Texas 7 escaped from John B. Connally Unit on December 13, 2000.

The ringleader of the group, George Rivas, was serving his 18 consecutive 15-to-life sentences for multiple counts of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery and one count of burglary of a habitation.

They committed more robberies while out of prison to support themselves. In one of the robberies, a police officer named Aubrey Hawkins was killed.

George Rivas was arrested on January 23, 2001, and sentenced to death on August 29. He was executed on February 29, 2012.

2 /10 Pascal Payet

While serving time for a robbery he had committed in 1997, Pascal Payet escaped from imprisonment in 2001. A helicopter landed on the prison roof and flew him out to freedom. He was recaptured three weeks later.

In July 2007, he managed to escape from prison again using more or less the same scenario as before, on a hijacked helicopter.

Payet was recaptured in Spain several months later, transferred to French custody, and is now imprisoned secretly.

His original 30-year sentence was more than doubled thanks to the prison breaks and the numerous crimes he committed while a fugitive.

1 /10 Ted Bundy

Throughout his criminal career, Ted Bundy escaped from prison twice in 1977. In between recaptures, he committed more assaults, including at least three murders.

His first escape was in June 1977 when he was indicted on aggravated kidnapping of a young Colorado woman. Bundy jumped out a window while in custody but was recaptured six days later.

In December, he made another breakout from jail while awaiting trial by climbing the crawl space.

Bundy was recaptured on February 15, 1978. He was sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair at Florida State Prison on January 24, 1989.