Byron Christopher - The Man Who Mailed Himself Out of Jail

A one-time murderer and many-time thief, Richard Lee McNair is the only person ever to break out of a jail, a state penitentiary and a federal penitentiary. Three escapes.

Some have described McNair as a folk-hero.

McNair has chosen to communicate with one journalist, Canadian reporter Byron Christopher. In The Man Who Mailed Himself Out of Jail, Christopher reveals McNair to be a man whose personality and morality are as complex as his prison breaks.

Richard McNair was 47 when he shipped himself out of a Louisiana penitentiary on the 5th of April 2006. His escape came to a whisker of failing just hours later when he was confronted on railroad tracks by a policeman, an event recorded by the officers dashcam. The encounter became a famous video clip on YouTube.

Month after month, McNair was featured on Americas Most Wanted and led newspaper and television newscasts in the United States and Canada. Nevertheless, for a year and a half, he managed to travel freely between the two countries. He broke into the occasional car dealership but never robbed a person or home. In fact, McNair comes out of this book a rather honorable man, albeit one who committed murder when he was in his twenties.

Through 300 letters and 3,000 handwritten pages from his solitary-confinement cell at the Supermax in Colorado, Richard McNair, now 54, provides the never-before-known details on how he pulled off his three escapes, his encounters with police, and what can be best described as a semi-paranoid life on the run.

His clever escape in 2006 was the first from a federal prison in 13 years and there hasnt been one since. Is McNair the worlds greatest escape artist? You decide.

No writer has ever had such access to an escape artist and to the thought process and planning behind the escapes. Byron Christopher has painstakingly checked out McNairs story, including much of his escape route. He has traveled to a number of places including Louisiana, Oklahoma, Colorado, North Dakota, Ontario, British Columbia and New Brunswick. The author also spent hours on the phone with police and many days writing letters to McNair, getting information from him. Christopher chronicles Richard Lee McNairs incredible journey, telling readers everything they could possibly want to know. The author comes to see for himself why so many friends and family of McNairs still have trouble believing he ever killed a man.

The book is written with proprietary information straight from prisoner McNair and exclusive information and material pulled from police files on both sides of the border. You will find out what police knew, and what they didnt know. Its extremely rare the R.C.M.P. would hand over evidence on a high profile case but for long-time crime reporter Christopher, they agreed to do it. The author also had rare interviews with McNairs victims and with Carl Bordelon the Louisiana police officer who briefly detained McNair on railroad tracks.

Christopher also had extensive communication with the lead U.S. Marshal on the McNair file, Glenn Belgard. What emerges after years of emails is that Belgard has a strong, curious respect for the man he was chasing. And, perhaps even more surprising, that McNair looks up to Belgard. You will be there when the two men finally meet. Youll be fascinated at the exchanges between the chaser and the chased, capped off with an act of kindness by the U.S. Marshal that leaves his prisoner in tears.

Christopher does not make McNair out to be a hero, but through letters and phone calls from the prisoner and many interviews with police, Air Force personnel and McNairs family members, its clear there is far more to the man than a murderer on the run. And through McNairs letters, readers get a rare look at life in solitary confinement in the most secure part of the worlds most secure prison, ADX Florence, the Alcatraz of the Rockies home of the Unabomber, Terry Nichols, Al-Qaeda bombers, rogue F.B.I. agents, killers of prison guards, Mafia dons and escape-artist Richard Lee McNair.

This is a real-life escape story that will take readers on a wild ride. There is no nonfiction reader, no true crime reader, no watcher of Law & Order or CSI, no policeman or student of criminal justice, no citizen of North Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska, British Columbia and New Brunswick where McNair has been front-page news for years who will not long to know the story behind the story.

Randy Marshall

Canadian Broadcaster

Canadian crime-reporter Byron Christopher has won national journalism awards for his newspaper and radio news stories. His stories have appeared on both public and private radio and in national magazines and newspapers.

He was also the crime reporter for CBC and CHED Radio in Edmonton, Alberta for more than 20 years.

Because of his investigative stories, Christopher has been served with search warrants by police working on high-profiled murder cases. Police wanted to know what he uncovered.

Of all the reporters who have written Richard McNair for information on his escapes and time on the lam, the Oklahoma native has chosen to tell his story exclusively to the Alberta journalist and author. Christopher has been able to draw out McNair on his escapes, his crimes including the 1987 homicide and his regrets. By writing letters to the prisoner and sending him photographs and satellite maps, the author has also been able to pin-point McNairs escape routes and some of his break-ins. The two have now exchanged hundreds of letters, giving a whole new meaning to a pen-pal relationship.

This is Christophers first book.

You can write to the author with comments, criticisms and suggestions. You can reach him at . If you had any dealings with McNair while he was on the lam, the author would like to hear from you.

Find more about the author by clicking on this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Christopher .

Click here for a link to the wiki page on Richard Lee McNair: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lee_McNair

The author was not able to include audio and video in this publication, and there was limited space for photographs. Go to his website for extra photos of Richard McNair and his travels, plus some audio and video: http://byronchristopher.org . Click on The Man Who Mailed Himself Out of Jail.