The FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives during the 1970s is a list, maintained for a third decade, of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.
As a decade, the 1970s are marked by the passing of the Hoover era. J. Edgar Hoover had formed and defined the Bureau for nearly a half century. He was succeeded by a long list of short-term directors throughout the Nixon – Ford – Carter era who could not match Hoover's larger persona. Eventually, Director William H. Webster brought stability to Bureau, during the President Reagan era.
On the 1970s top 10 list, perhaps the most notable is the 2nd appearance of James Earl Ray, in 1977. Additionally, in 1971 the list was completely filled with long-time fugitives, who persistently evaded capture, leading to the very first year in which the FBI found it impractical to add any new fugitives to the top ten list. In 1970, the FBI had packed the list with an extraordinary number of "Special Additions" of whom most evaded capture. Consequently, the 1971 list opened with a total of sixteen wanted fugitives at large, nearly twice as many as would typically appear on the list at any other given time. By the end of the year 1971, three of the listed wanted fugitives had been captured, bringing the opening 1972 list down to a still extraordinarily large number of thirteen fugitives. Due to further removals from the list in 1972, the FBI found justification to finally list a single new Fugitive late that year.
The FBI in the past has identified individuals by the sequence number in which each individual has appeared on the list. Some individuals have even appeared twice, and often a sequence number was permanently assigned to an individual suspect who was soon caught, captured, or simply removed, before his or her appearance could be published on the publicly released list. In those cases, the public would see only gaps in the number sequence reported by the FBI. For convenient reference, the wanted suspect's sequence number and date of entry on the FBI list appear below, whenever possible.
As the decade began, the following fugitives were the FBI's Ten Most Wanted:
| Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| John William Clouser |
| 1965 | Dropped from the list August 1, 1972, later surrendered to authorities on August 21, 1974 | |
| Charles Lee Herron |
| 1968 | Arrested in June 1986 | |
| Taylor Morris Teaford |
| 1968 | Dropped from the list May 24, 1972 | |
| Byron James Rice |
| 1968 | Apprehended October 2, 1972 | |
| Warren David Reddock |
| 1969 | Arrested April 14, 1971 | |
| Cameron David Bishop |
| 1969 | Arrested in Rhode Island March 12, 1975 | |
| Marie Dean Arrington |
| 1969 | Arrested in New Orleans, December 22, 1971. Sentenced to life in prison without parole Arrington was the second woman to appear on the list since the list began.[1] | |
| Benjamin Hoskins Paddock |
| 1969 | Bank robber, appeared on the list after escaping prison. Dropped from the list on May 5, 1977, captured in 1978. He was the father of the Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock. | |
| Joseph Lloyd Thomas |
| 1969 | Arrested March 8, 1970 | |
The tenth space had just opened up at the end of the year 1969, but was promptly filled by a new individual on the list in the first week of 1970.
The most wanted fugitives listed in the decade of the 1970s include (in FBI list appearance sequence order):[2] [3]
| Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| James John Byrnes |
| January 6, 1970 | Three months | |
| James John Byrnes was arrested April 17, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California. | ||||
| Edmund James Devlin |
| March 6, 1970 | Five months | |
| Edmund James Devlin was arrested August 15, 1970 in Manchester, New Hampshire. | ||||
| Lawrence Robert Plamondon |
| May 5, 1970 | Two months | |
| Lawrence Robert Plamondon was arrested July 23, 1970 in Mackinac County, Michigan after being stopped by state police when an occupant of his van threw a can out of the van window. A license plate check through the NCIC identified Plamondon. | ||||
| Hubert Geroid Brown |
| May 6, 1970 | One year | |
| Hubert Geroid Brown was captured October 16, 1971 during an armed robbery in New York City after being seriously wounded in a gunfight with local police. | ||||
| Angela Yvonne Davis |
| August 18, 1970 | Two months | |
| Angela Yvonne Davis was captured October 13, 1970 at a motel room in New York City. She had fled California and evaded the police for over two months. She was charged in California with conspiracy, kidnapping, and homicide, due to her alleged participation in an escape attempt of George Jackson, a Black Panther Party member, from the Marin County Hall of Justice during his trial, in which the judge, Harold Haley, was shot to death after being taken outside into a van. She was exonerated on all charges in 1972 after being held in a Women's Detention Center in New York City. | ||||
| Dwight Alan Armstrong |
| September 4, 1970 | Six years | |
| Dwight Alan Armstrong was removed from the list on April 1, 1976, because he no longer met the list criteria. He was eventually arrested in April 1977 in connection with the Sterling Hall bombing. He was sentenced to seven years for second-degree murder on May 5, 1977, and was paroled in 1980.[4] | ||||
| Karleton Lewis Armstrong |
| September 4, 1970 | Two years | |
| Karleton Lewis Armstrong was apprehended February 16, 1972 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was returned to the United States in March 1973 where he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and arson in the Sterling Hall bombing. He was sentenced to 23 years, but had his prison sentence reduced and was freed in February 1980. | ||||
| David Sylvan Fine |
| September 4, 1970 | Six years | |
| David Sylvan Fine was arrested January 8, 1976 in San Rafael, California in connection to the Sterling Hall bombing. He was sentenced to seven years for second-degree murder and eventually released in August 1979. | ||||
| Leo Frederick Burt |
| September 4, 1970 | Six years | |
| Leo Frederick Burt was removed from the list on April 7, 1976 because he no longer met the list criteria. Burt has not been captured and is still at large with state charges still pending against him. | ||||
| Bernardine Rae Dohrn |
| October 14, 1970 | Three years | |
| Bernardine Rae Dohrn was sought in connection to activities associated with the Weatherman group. The process was dismissed on December 7, 1973. | ||||
| Katherine Ann Power |
| October 17, 1970 | Fourteen years | |
| Katherine Ann Power was removed from the list on June 15, 1984 because she no longer met the list criteria. She surrendered to authorities in 1993. She pleaded guilty and was imprisoned in Massachusetts for six years before being released on 14-years' probation. | ||||
| Susan Edith Saxe |
| October 17, 1970 | Five years | |
| Susan Edith Saxe was arrested March 27, 1975 in Philadelphia after a Philadelphia officer recognized her from a photo distributed by the FBI the same day. | ||||
| Mace Brown |
| October 20, 1972 | Six months | |
| Mace Brown was killed by police officers in a bank robbery shootout on April 18, 1973, in New York City during which the bank robbers took hostages.[5] | ||||
| Herman Bell |
| May 9, 1973 | Four months | |
| Herman Bell was arrested September 2, 1973 in New Orleans by the FBI and local officers. | ||||
| Twymon Ford Myers |
| September 28, 1973 | Two months | |
| Twymon Ford Myers was killed November 14, 1973 in the Bronx, New York, during a shootout with the FBI and the New York Police Department. | ||||
| Ronald Harvey |
| December 7, 1973 | Three months | |
| Ronald Harvey was arrested March 27, 1974 in Chicago. | ||||
| Samuel Richard Christian |
| December 7, 1973 | Five days | |
| Samuel Richard Christian was arrested December 12, 1973 in Detroit. | ||||
| Rudolph Alonza Turner |
| January 10, 1974 | Nine months | |
| Rudolph Alonza Turner was arrested October 1, 1974 in Jacksonville, Florida, by FBI agents. | ||||
| Larry Gene Cole |
| April 2, 1974 | One day | |
| Larry Gene Cole was arrested April 3, 1974. He was accompanied by his wife and his kidnap victim when apprehended near Buffalo, New York. When Cole was first approached he claimed to be part of the Special Investigation, Department of Justice. | ||||
| James Ellsworth Jones |
| April 2, 1974 | Two months | |
| James Ellsworth Jones was arrested June 15, 1974 in Coral Gables, Florida, after an off-duty police officer recognized Jones from an FBI Wanted Notice in the police department. | ||||
| Lendell Hunter |
| June 27, 1974 | One month | |
| Lendell Hunter was wanted in a prison escape (he was serving three sentences for rape) and a murder of a 78-year-old woman and an assault of a 12-year-old grandson in Augusta, Georgia. He was arrested July 31, 1974 in Des Moines, Iowa. | ||||
| John Edward Copeland |
| August 15, 1974 | One year | |
| John Edward Copeland was arrested July 23, 1975 due to citizen cooperation, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, after riding his bicycle home. | ||||
| Melvin Dale Walker |
| October 16, 1974 | Three weeks | |
| Melvin Dale Walker was apprehended November 9, 1974 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, after entering a house staked out by agents on the inside and outside of the house. He attempted to escape by car but was arrested. | ||||
| Thomas Otis Knight |
| December 12, 1974 | Two weeks | |
| Thomas Otis Knight was arrested December 31, 1974 in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Though heavily armed and barricaded behind a door in a rooming house, he was overwhelmed by the FBI SWAT Team. He was executed for his crimes on January 7, 2014, at Florida State Prison. | ||||
| Name | Sequence Number | Date of Entry | Time Listed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Billy Dean Anderson |
| January 21, 1975 | Four years | |
| Billy Dean Anderson was killed July 7, 1979 in Pall Mall, Tennessee, during a shootout with police. The lead was based on information from an informant known as "Mountain Man." | ||||
| Robert Gerald Davis |
| April 4, 1975 | Two years | |
| Robert Gerald Davis was arrested August 5, 1977 in Venice, California. | ||||
| Richard Dean Holtan |
| April 18, 1975 | Three months | |
| Richard Dean Holtan was arrested July 12, 1975 by local authorities in Kauai, Hawaii. | ||||
| Richard Bernard Lindhorst, Jr. |
| August 4, 1975 | Three days | |
| Richard Bernard Lindhorst, Jr. was arrested August 7, 1975 in Pensacola, Florida, by FBI agents and local police. | ||||
| William Lewis Herron, Jr. |
| August 15, 1975 | Two months | |
| William Lewis Herron, Jr. was arrested October 30, 1975 in Peoria, Illinois. | ||||
| James Winston Smallwood |
| August 29, 1975 | Four months | |
| James Winston Smallwood was arrested December 5, 1975 in Landover, Maryland, after being located in the trunk of a vehicle used in a bank robbery in Maryland. | ||||
| Leonard Peltier |
| December 22, 1975 | Two months | |
| Leonard Peltier become an infamous cause célèbre of the American Indian Movement (AIM), for alleged irregularities in his trial. He was arrested February 6, 1976 in Hinton, Alberta, Canada by Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment for the execution-style murders of two U.S. FBI agents. | ||||
| Patrick James Huston |
| March 3, 1976 | One year | |
| Patrick James Huston was arrested December 7, 1977 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. | ||||
| Thomas Edward Bethea |
| March 5, 1976 | Two months | |
| Thomas Edward Bethea was arrested May 5, 1976 in the Bahamas by Bahamian authorities. Transferred into FBI custody upon his arrival in Miami. | ||||
| Anthony Michael Juliano |
| March 15, 1976 | One week | |
| Anthony Michael Juliano was arrested March 22, 1976 in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, after a meter maid recognized him in a parked car. | ||||
| Joseph Maurice McDonald |
| April 1, 1976 | Six years | |
| Joseph Maurice McDonald was arrested September 15, 1982 at Penn Station in New York City by local police. | ||||
| James Ray Renton |
| April 7, 1976 | One year | |
| James Ray Renton was arrested May 9, 1977 in Aurora, Colorado. | ||||
| Nathaniel Doyle, Jr. |
| April 29, 1976 | Three months | |
| Nathaniel Doyle, Jr. was killed in a shootout on July 15, 1976 with local police in Seattle. | ||||
| Morris Lynn Johnson |
| May 25, 1976 | One month | |
| Morris Lynn Johnson was taken into custody on June 26, 1976 in New Orleans after trying to run away along a canal bank. | ||||
| Richard Joseph Picariello |
| July 29, 1976 | Three months | |
| Richard Joseph Picariello was arrested October 21, 1976 in Fall River, Massachusetts. | ||||
| Edward Patrick Gullion |
| August 13, 1976 | Two months | |
| Edward Patrick Gullion was arrested October 22, 1976 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he was employed at a jewelry store. | ||||
| Gerhardt Julius Schwartz |
| November 18, 1976 | Four days | |
| Gerhardt Julius Schwartz was arrested November 22, 1976 in the Bronx section of New York City after the police received a tip from a telephone call from New Rochelle, New York. | ||||
| Francis John Martin |
| December 17, 1976 | Two months | |
| Francis John Martin was arrested February 17, 1977 in Newport Beach, California, after a tip from a telephone call. | ||||
| Benjamin George Pavan |
| January 12, 1977 | One month | |
| Benjamin George Pavan was arrested February 17, 1977 in Seattle after a tip from a telephone call. | ||||
| Larry Gene Campbell |
| March 18, 1977 | Six months | |
| Larry Gene Campbell was arrested September 6, 1977 in Atlanta after a neighbor recognized him from a Wanted flyer in the local post office. | ||||
| Roy Ellsworth Smith |
| March 18, 1977 | Three months | |
| Roy Ellsworth Smith was found to have hanged himself on June 2, 1977 in Perry Township, Ohio, by the Lake County Sheriff's Department of Painesville, Ohio. | ||||
| Raymond Luc Levasseur |
| May 5, 1977 | Seven years | |
| Raymond Luc Levasseur was arrested November 4, 1984 in Deerfield, Ohio, by FBI agents while traveling in his car with his common-law wife and their three children. | ||||
| James Earl Ray |
| June 11, 1977 | Two days | |
| James Earl Ray made his second appearance on the list (previously #277, in 1968, for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.) after a June 10 escape with 6 other convicts from state prison. He was apprehended not far from the prison in Brushy Mountain, Tennessee, on June 13, 1977. Using bloodhounds, the prison authorities found Ray hiding beneath some leaves in a wooded area. | ||||
| Willie Foster Sellers |
| June 14, 1977 | Two years | |
| Willie Foster Sellers, the reputed leader of the Dawson Gang,[6] claimed to have robbed more than 100 banks for more than $8 million in the 1970s. He was arrested June 20, 1979 in Atlanta upon his arrival at the Delta Air Lines freight dock. | ||||
| Larry Smith |
| July 15, 1977 | One month | |
| Larry Smith was arrested August 20, 1977 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, by the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force. He was pulled over for illegally driving past a street car's open door. Smith was identified by his fingerprints and delivered to American authorities. | ||||
| Ralph Robert Cozzolino |
| October 19, 1977 | Three months | |
| Ralph Robert Cozzolino was arrested January 6, 1978 in Jonesboro, Georgia. | ||||
| Millard Oscar Hubbard |
| October 19, 1977 | Two days | |
| Millard Oscar Hubbard was arrested October 21, 1977 in Lexington, Kentucky, after a tip from locals. | ||||
| Carlos Alberto Torres |
| October 19, 1977 | Three years | |
| Carlos Alberto Torres was arrested April 4, 1980 after a car rental agency reported a stolen van to the police. Torres was arrested in Evanston, Illinois, after locals noticed a suspicious van parked in the neighborhood and contacted the police. | ||||
| Enrique Estrada |
| December 5, 1977 | Three days | |
| Enrique Estrada was arrested December 8, 1977 in Bakersfield, California, by the Narcotics Task Force of the Kern County Sheriff's Office. Narcotics officers had been following a suspect known as "Hank" and after seeing Wanted Flyers realized he was Estrada. | ||||
| William David Smith |
| February 10, 1978 | Eight months | |
| William David Smith was arrested October 27, 1978 in Chicago following a telephone tip. | ||||
| Gary Ronald Warren |
| February 10, 1978 | Three months | |
| Gary Ronald Warren was arrested May 12, 1978 in Cumberland, Maryland, by the FBI and local police. | ||||
| Theodore Robert Bundy |
| February 10, 1978 | Four days | |
| Theodore Robert Bundy was arrested by local police February 14, 1978 in Pensacola, Florida, after he was stopped for speeding while driving a stolen vehicle, and NCIC came back with a hit. Bundy was wanted for twice escaping from jail, June 9, 1977 and in December 1977, while being held on a murder charge. | ||||
| Andrew Evan Gipson |
| March 27, 1978 | Two months | |
| Andrew Evan Gipson was arrested May 24, 1978 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. | ||||
| Anthony Dominic Liberatore |
| May 24, 1978 | One year | |
| Anthony Dominic Liberatore was arrested April 1, 1979 in Eastlake, Ohio, by FBI agents and local police, while he was in bed alone in a house considered "safe" by organized crime in the area. | ||||
| Michael George Thevis |
| July 10, 1978 | Four months | |
| Michael George Thevis was arrested November 9, 1978 in Bloomfield, Connecticut, by FBI agents and local police. Was called "The King of Pornography." | ||||
| Charles Everett Hughes |
| November 19, 1978 | Three years | |
| Charles Everett Hughes was arrested April 29, 1981 in Myrtle, Mississippi, by FBI agents and local police while working in a car repair shop. | ||||
| Ronald Lee Lyons |
| December 17, 1978 | Nine months | |
| Ronald Lee Lyons was arrested September 10, 1979 in Hungry Valley, Nevada, by FBI agents and the Washoe County Sheriff's department. | ||||
| Leo Joseph Koury |
| April 20, 1979 | Twelve years | |
| Leo Joseph Koury was found dead on June 16, 1991 in San Diego from massive cerebral vascular hypertension. | ||||
| John William Sherman |
| August 3, 1979 | Two years | |
| John William Sherman was arrested December 17, 1981 in Golden, Colorado, while he was getting into his car outside his residence. | ||||
| Melvin Bay Guyon |
| August 9, 1979 | One week | |
| Melvin Bay Guyon surrendered on August 16, 1979 after a short gun battle with FBI agents in Youngstown, Ohio, at Southside General Hospital where he was seeking medical attention. | ||||
| George Alvin Bruton |
| September 28, 1979 | Three months | |
| George Alvin Bruton was a known drug dealer who shot 2 FBI agents. He was arrested December 14, 1979 in Fort Smith, Arkansas. | ||||
| Earl Edwin Austin |
| October 12, 1979 | Five months | |
| Earl Edwin Austin was arrested March 1, 1980 in his apartment in Tucson, Arizona. | ||||
| Vincent James Russo |
| December 24, 1979 | Six years | |
| Vincent James Russo was arrested January 4, 1985 at his home in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. | ||||
By the end of the decade, the following fugitives were remaining at large on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list:
| Name | Sequence number | Date of entry | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Lee Herron |
| 1968 | |
| Katherine Ann Power |
| 1970 | |
| Joseph Maurice McDonald |
| 1976 | |
| Raymond Luc Levasseur |
| 1977 | |
| Carlos Alberto Torres |
| 1977 | |
| Charles Everett Hughes |
| 1978 | |
| Leo Joseph Koury |
| 1979 | |
| John William Sherman |
| 1979 | |
| Earl Edwin Austin |
| 1979 | |
| Vincent James Russo |
| 1979 |
*Acting director