FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, 1960s



In the 1960s, for a second decade, the United States FBI continued to maintain a public list of the people it regarded as the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Following is a brief review of FBI people and events that place the 1960s decade in context, and then an historical list of individual suspects whose names first appeared on the 10 Most Wanted list during the decade of the 1960s, under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

FBI headlines in the 1960s
As a decade, the 1960s were the final and most controversial of the Hoover era in the Bureau. The famous Director had formed and defined the Bureau for nearly a half century. During the turbulent 1960s, the FBI continued controversial domestic surveillance in an operation called Cointelpro. It aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States, including civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr. who was a frequent target of investigation.

As a more friendly face presented to the public, in 1965 Warner Bros. Television presented the series The F.B.I., showing dramatizations taken from actual historical FBI cases, starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as fictional agent Louis Erskine. Epilogues included Zimbalist stepping out of character to alert viewers to Ten Most Wanted Fugitives from the FBI's contemporary list.

FBI "Most Wanted Fugitives" in the 1960s
The FBI in the past has identified individuals by the sequence number in which each individual has appeared on the list. Some individuals have even appeared twice, and often a sequence number was permanently assigned to an individual suspect who was soon caught, captured, or simply removed, before his or her appearance could be published on the publicly released list. In those cases, the public would see only gaps in the number sequence reported by the FBI. For convenient reference, the wanted suspect's sequence number and date of entry on the FBI list appear below, whenever possible.

As the new decade opened, six of the ten places on the list remained filled by these elusive long-time fugitives, then still at large:


 * 1950 #14 (ten years), Frederick J. Tenuto
 * 1952 #36 (eight years), James Eddie Diggs
 * 1954 #78 (six years), David Daniel Keegan
 * 1956 #97 (four years), Eugene Francis Newman
 * 1958 #107 (two years), Angelo Luigi Pero
 * 1959 #112 (one year), Edwin Sanford Garrison

The most wanted fugitives listed in the decade of the 1960s includes (in FBI list appearance sequence order):

Joseph Corbett, Jr.
Joseph Corbett, Jr. was wanted for kidnap and murder of wealthy heir Adolph Coors III status: paroled in 1980

James Earl Ray
April 20, 1968 #277, & also June 11, 1977 #351 Two months on the list James Earl Ray was apprehended June 8, 1968 in London, England by British authorities for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He died of hepatitis C at age 70 in prison.

Billie Austin Bryant
January 8, 1969 #295 shortest time (excluding never published) on the list, 2 hours Fourth "Special Addition" Billie Austin Bryant was wanted for first degree murder of two FBI Agents status: US PRISONER at the Federal Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia November 4, 1969

By the end of the decade, the following Fugitives were the FBI's Ten Most Wanted:


 * 1965 #203 (five years), John William Clouser
 * 1968 #265 (two years), Charles Lee Herron
 * 1968 #279 (two years), Taylor Morris Teaford
 * 1968 #282 (two years), Byron James Rice
 * 1969 #298 (one year), Warren David Reddock
 * 1969 #300 (one year), Cameron David Bishop
 * 1969 #301 (one year), Marie Dean Arrington
 * 1969 #302 (six months), Benjamin Hoskin Paddock (also father of shooter in 2017 Las Vegas shooting)
 * 1969 #304 (three months), Joseph Lloyd Thomas

The tenth space had just opened up at the end of the year 1969.