What Happened To Glen Chambers After He Escaped From Prison?

"Thinking outside the box" is excellent advice in most situations — it can even get you out of prison. It got Glen Stark Chambers out of prison in 1990, and he's still on the run, whereabouts unknown. If you live in the southern United States, you may even have run into him.

Chambers was an inmate at Polk Correctional Institute in Florida, according to The Cinemaholic, serving a life sentence for murdering his girlfriend with his bare hands. He was sentenced in 1975, at the age of 23. The young man attempted escape almost immediately upon arrival in prison, attacking a guard with two accomplices and managing to climb out a window. It ended about as you'd expect for three prisoners climbing out of a prison window: They didn't get very far, and a Florida judge added five years to Chambers' life term, a symbolic rebuke and a serious impediment to any future case in the appellate court.

Per The Cinemaholic, by 1990 Chambers seemed to be turning a new leaf. His behavior over the 15-year interlude had been exemplary, and prison authorities gave him permission to work in a furniture construction shop, designed to give inmates vocational training and a sense of purpose.

But Chambers had a secret plan. On February 21, 1990, he slipped into one of the boxes of furniture that was due to be shipped off the premises to a warehouse. Somehow Chambers enlisted the assistance of a fellow inmate (or more) to seal him inside the crate. No one noticed the extra wait as they loaded the crate into the truck. Nor did anyone notice, on the drive to Daytona Beach, anything shifting around in the back of the truck — no footsteps, no clunking lids, no sound of the back panel sliding open or dropping shut. Upon arrival, however, one open crate contained a discarded prisoner's uniform, and the Polk Correctional Institute was missing a man. How — and at one point — did Chambers manage to not only emerge from the crate, but probably wearing ordinary civilian clothing as well? So far, there are no answers. No one has yet to hear from him again, or spot him.

Before his time in prison, a 23-year-old Glen Chambers was living with his 22-year-old girlfriend, waitress Connie Weeks, in Sarasota, Florida. The relationship seems to have been abusive. In January of 1975, a policeman intervened to prevent Chambers from physically attacking Weeks on the street during one of their arguments — he already had her hair in his fist. The policeman, who was off-duty at the time, arrested Chambers on the spot and called for backup to bring him to jail. But Weeks was stubbornly loyal to the man who hurt her.  She bailed her boyfriend out that same day.

Loyalty only goes one way with some people. That same night, Chambers showed up at the Sarasota Memorial Hospital, carrying Weeks' battered body in his arms. According to Chambers, she'd slipped in the shower. It was a desperate lie, and the doctors and nurses who tended to Weeks phoned the police. She died in the hospital in less than a week, and a judge sentenced Chambers to the electric chair for murder.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.

The Florida Supreme Court commuted Chambers' death sentence to a life term a few months later. After that first escape attempt, it took 15 years of penance for prison authorities to trust him enough to give him the furniture shop position, and he betrayed that trust almost immediately. 

We'll never know what twisted, unhealthy thoughts must motivate a man like Glen Chambers, but we'd be foolish not to acknowledge that he's clever. No one knows where Chambers is today, although according to WTSP News, someone claimed to have spotted him near the beach in Alabama. 

So if you ever find yourself in Alabama, sunning yourself on the Gulf Coast, keep one eye open for any suspicious-looking men in their late 60s. Chambers is reputedly intelligent, with a keen interest in anthropology. Given his years in the prison furniture shop, he ought to be good with his hands as well. He has a tattoo on his upper left arm that says "Live Free or Die" (possibly surgically removed or covered over) and distinctive, bright blue eyes.