GILMER, Texas — Most of Upshur County’s historic courthouse will take a trip back in time to the early 1930s as part of a restoration process. But one small, dark room on the fifth floor will be left the way it looked in July 1986.
The top floor of the courthouse was the county jail for decades. In one part of the facility is a group of cells used to house everyday offenders. In another is a narrow, dimly lit hallway leading to a row of isolation cells, where criminals of the worst class were kept.
Serial murderer and rapist Jerry Walter “Animal” McFadden escaped from one of those isolation cells on July 9, 1986, after knocking out a jailer, taking another hostage, stealing her car and driving out of town with her. What ensued was the largest manhunt in Texas history as hundreds of law enforcement officers came to East Texas to search for McFadden.
Read the full story from our news partners, the Longview News-Journal.
