From post office to Facebook, FBI's 'Most Wanted' turns 60

THE YEAR was 1951, and chef Vernon Morley King was shucking oysters in the kitchen of a Germantown restaurant when his past caught up with him.

FBI agents approached so quietly that the 15 people savoring their supper in the dining room didn't know of the drama unfolding behind the kitchen door.

"I wondered how long it was going to take you guys to catch up with me," King said calmly, laying aside his oyster knife as an agent approached with handcuffs.

Turning to his gaping boss, King said: "You better give me my pay. I'll be needing it."

It was a quick end to a long, global hunt for a monster.

But it made history: A wife-strangler, King was just the second fugitive to make it onto the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list. Authorities had hunted the elusive King, a world wanderer fluent in several languages, for four years after finding the body of his wife, a Portuguese countess, stuffed in a trunk under the porch of the coastal California hotel where he worked.

Such success is a hallmark of a program that will mark its 60th anniversary on Sunday.

The FBI's "Top Ten" has a remarkable success rate: Of 494 fugitives placed on the list since its 1950 debut, 463, or 94 percent, have been apprehended or located.

Some were notorious, like serial killer Ted Bundy; dapper bank robber Willie Sutton (who escaped from Eastern State Penitentiary in Fairmount); assassin James Earl Ray, who killed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber.

Some proved incredibly slippery, like Donald Eugene Webb, a cop-killer who spent almost 26 years on the list before being removed in 2007, when authorities found no evidence that he was still committing crimes. Others weren't so lucky at eluding capture. Billy Austin Bryant, who killed two FBI agents in Washington, D.C., was on the list just two hours before he was nabbed in 1969.

Eight women have been on the list, and six men have landed there more than once. (One of them, Susan Edith Saxe, was nabbed in Philadelphia in 1975; she participated in a 1970 Boston holdup in which a cop was slain.)

As decades pass, the list has reflected the changing times. For example, bank robbers, burglars and car thieves were typical thugs on the list in the 1950s. The 1970s-era list included more fugitives associated with organized crime or terrorist groups. Most names added nowadays belong to sexual predators, international terrorists, drug traffickers and white-collar criminals.

Since 1950, the FBI's Philadelphia office has put 16 fugitives on the list, including two who remain on the run: Alexis Flores, a Honduran drifter sought in the rape and murder of 5-year-old Iriana DeJesus in Hunting Park in 2000, and Semion Mogilevich, a Russian wanted in a $150 million securities-fraud scheme based in Newtown, Bucks County.

Authorities believe that both men are hiding in their native countries - a likelihood that frustrates Special Agent Kevin McShane, case manager in the Flores probe. Neither country has an extradition treaty with the United States, meaning that finding the fugitives is just the first step in bringing them to justice, he said.

"Our main goal is to just locate them first, and then we can worry about the formal political processes later," McShane said.

While many baddies, once behind bars, might brag about making the list, no one welcomes its spotlight when they're on the lam, experts agree.

"By media focusing on it, a much broader audience is able to see these suspects, and there's a much greater chance of apprehending them," said Kelly Welch, a Villanova University criminologist.

As technology progresses, authorities expect even more success from the "Top Ten" list, said Special Agent J.J. Klaver, a Philadelphia FBI spokesman. The list is everywhere, from newspapers and TV to digital billboards and online sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. There's even a cell-phone application.

"In the old days, these [most-wanted] photos hung in post offices," Klaver said.

"Now, we're taking advantage of technology; it's all about getting the attention of the public . . . the more eyes we can get on a picture, the better chance we have of getting them."