Ohio 'Shawshank Redemption' fugitive Frank Freshwater arrested after 56 years on the run

He escaped from prison in 1959 but has finally been apprehended by the authorities

Justice finally caught up with fugitive Frank Freshwater (EPA)

It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie but police have arrested a criminal who has been on the run for over half a century.

Frank Freshwater, 79, was arrested on Tuesday after the authorities finally tracked him down to a trailer park in Melbourne, Florida.

Mr Freshwater became one of Ohio’s most-wanted fugitives after he escaped from prison in 1959.

He was first sentenced to five years’ probation for vehicular manslaughter after he killed a pedestrian while speeding. However, after breaching the terms of his probation conditions two years later Freshwater was put in prison to serve up to 20 years.

He was initially incarcerated in Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, where the Hollywood film The Shawshank Redemption was shot, before being transferred to the lower security Sandusky Honor Farm.

It was after the first seven months at the second prison that Freshwater made his bid for freedom and spent the subsequent five decades as a fugitive.

He was briefly detained by the authorities in 1975 when deputies in West Virginia arrested him on an Ohio warrant but the state's governor refused to extradite him at the time and he went back into hiding.

During his time on the run he travelled between states and worked as a truck driver, before settling in Brevard County, Florida, where he has been living for the past 20 years.

But the law eventually caught up with him this week after the US Marshals Service’s Cold Case Unit managed to find him living in the trailer under the assumed identity of William H Cox.

"We did some undercover work out there. One of our agents [was] able to obtain some fingerprints and confirm Frank Freshwater and William Cox were the same person," said Major Tod Goodyear, with the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, told WFTV.

The unit observed Freshwater for a week before members of the US Marshals Service and the Brevard County Sheriff's Office approached his trailer and presented him with an old mugshot of himself.

They asked him if he had seen that man, to which Freshwater replied “not for a very long time”. He then admitted his true identity to them.

"I was shocked like wow. But he's always stuck to himself. He's never done anything wrong, he's always been friendly," said neighbour Debbie Simmons-Tindall.

Freshwater is now in Brevard County Jail waiting to be extradited back to Ohio.