‘Jailhouse Houdini’ Back In Pen TV Show Snares Renowned Escapee

A convict known as a “jailhouse Houdini” for repeated escapes that included crawling through sewer lines and blending into a courthouse crowd during a recess in a trial is back behind bars.

Again. For now.

This time, Kenneth Paul Putnam was captured in Decatur in a motel room with his girlfriend early Thursday after someone recognized him on TV’s “America’s Most Wanted.” He had been on the lam 18 months, ever since he conned Georgia authorities into transferring him from a maximum-security prison to a county jail, where he simply went over the fence.

Putnam, 39, has escaped at least five times in the last 18 years.

“This is one of those people who’s constantly looking for any opportunity,” said Mike Light, Georgia Corrections Department spokesman. “He’s slick, and he’s constantly just looking for another way to get out.”

An early try wasn’t so slick. In 1979, Putnam ran away from a prison work detail but was caught the same day.

Five years later, he escaped by prying open a manhole cover on the prison grounds that led to a sewer line, and crawling through it. He was recaptured in Kansas three days later after a holdup at a grocery store.

In 1993, he escaped from another jail by hiding out in the recreation yard after exercise period and climbing the fence at dusk. He was recaptured a couple of days later.

While being tried on escape charges in 1994, he got up while the court was in recess, blended in with the onlookers and walked out.

He had been back in custody barely two months when he escaped the last time, hiding out in the yard after all the inmates were called back in. Dogs tracked him in the mountains for three days, then lost the scent.

“I don’t like being locked up,” Putnam told the Dallas Morning News from a Dallas lockup. “There’s a bunch of animals in prison. I know I need to pay for what I’ve done, but I don’t want to be here.”

Sheriff Billy Bernhardt of Georgia’s Gilmer County said Putnam persuaded prosecutors to move him from a state prison to a jail by claiming to have valuable information on some bank robberies.

Until the “America’s Most Wanted” broadcast, the escape artist had been staying at a trailer park in Seagoville, outside Dallas. He and his girlfriend saw the show Saturday and fled just ahead of authorities.

The couple were tracked to Decatur, 75 miles from Seagoville. Putnam was arrested by a Dallas detective he had met on the midway at the state fair two months ago.

“Don’t I know you from somewhere?” Putnam asked Detective John Westphalen. Westphalen had worked security at the fair; Putnam was a carny selling chances to hurl baseballs at bottles.

Putnam will be held until he is returned to Georgia, where he was convicted of armed robbery.

Putnam said he hasn’t committed a crime since stealing a car during his next-to-last escape.

“I’m getting older and don’t do that stuff anymore,” he said. “For the record, I’ve never hurt anybody or shot anybody. I’m not violent. I’ve only been in one fist fight in my life.”

As officers drove Putnam back to jail, he told Westphalen: “These handcuffs are kind of tight. Can you loosen them up?”

“Nice try,” the detective said.