Dec 08, 2016
A 71-year-old Sherman man who spent 48 years as a fugitive from justice after escaping from a Georgia prison died Monday.
Robert Stackowitz was taken to Danbury Hospital over the weekend and died as the result of numerous health complications, according to attorney Norm Pattis.
It was only six weeks ago that the state dropped its efforts to extradite him to Georgia to face charges as a fugitive. Pattis had fought extradition, indicating his client was too ill to travel. Stackowitz didn't attend his last court hearing because he was sick.
"We weren't kidding when we said sending him back to Georgia would kill him," Pattis said Thursday. "Bob suffered multiple kidney failures and his overall health was failing badly."
In court, Pattis had said Stackowitz suffered from, among other ailments, bladder cancer, congestive heart failure, diabetes and breathing problems.
Stackowitz became the subject of national news last May when he was arrested at his Sherman home and charged as a fugitive. Georgia authorities had tracked him down when he applied for social security benefits in Connecticut.
Stackowitz had been convicted in 1966 of robbery by force after driving the getaway car in a house burglary. In 1968, about two years into his 17-year sentence, he drove away from a prison camp in a vehicle he used to travel around the state to repair school buses.
In an interview with The Courant after the charges were dropped, Stackowitz said the ordeal caused him great stress, and took a financial toll. He lost customers for his boat repair business, and Social Security and Medicare denied his applications for benefits.
"I was really getting prepared to go," Stackowitz said. "And Norm and I had even talked about me going down there and turning myself in. But they came through in the end. I just want to die here at home where I live. I don't want to die in jail in Georgia, or on the way."