Hunting Down Mr. Wright

Summary

48 Hours: "Hunting Down Mr. Wright"

Date: August 27, 2025
Host: CBS News | “48 Hours” Correspondents
Summary by Podcast Summarizer

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Overview: Main Theme & Purpose

“Hunting Down Mr. Wright” meticulously investigates the decades-spanning story of George Wright—a convicted murderer, prison escapee, international hijacker, and master fugitive who eluded justice for over 40 years. Through first-hand accounts, investigative insight, and reflective interviews—especially with Walter Patterson’s family—the episode explores the deep impact of one violent crime, the relentless pursuit by law enforcement, and the emotional toll on victims' families, all with the signature immersive narrative style of “48 Hours.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Murder of Walter Patterson (1962)

• Incident Recap [02:09-03:18]
  • Walter Patterson, a decorated WWII veteran, was brutally beaten and shot during a gas station robbery by 19-year-old George Wright and Walter McGee.
  • "The ironic thing was that he came through the war only to have this happen to him." – Ann Patterson [02:29]
  • Both assailants were caught within 48 hours after Patterson, despite his injuries, provided detailed descriptions of his attackers and their car. [10:02-10:40]

2. Aftermath & Family Trauma

• Ann Patterson’s Reflections
  • The shocking loss of her father upended Ann’s life at age 14; family life was never the same.
  • "You look at the clock…and he's not coming home. And you gotta remind yourself of that." – Ann Patterson [11:23]
  • Ongoing trauma: Ann is unable to visit hospitals, even for grandchildren’s births, due to PTSD from the tragedy. [33:54]

3. George Wright’s Sentencing and Prison Escape

• Conviction & Plea Bargain [10:40-11:10]
  • Wright pled no contest, received 15–30 years; McGee got life.
• Audacious Escape [15:01-16:01]
  • In 1970, Wright and three others simply walked away from minimum security prison, allegedly hotwiring the warden’s car. "I don't make no comment on that...I think that is funny." – George Wright [15:49]

4. Life on the Run: Hijacking, Radical Politics, and Disappearing Acts

• Delta Airlines Hijacking [18:43-23:35]

  • In 1972, Wright (disguised as a priest) and others hijacked Delta Flight 841, demanding $1 million and safe passage to Algiers—a radical political act tied to Black Panther activism.
  • "He terrorized some people on that plane. You don't bring a gun on an airplane and expect something good to happen." – RJ Gallagher [20:38]
  • Bizarre details included the hijackers demanding the FBI agent delivering ransom be naked—later negotiated to a bathing suit. [23:02-23:26]
  • The plane, crew, and passengers were eventually released unharmed.

• International Fugitive [28:42-33:46]

  • After Algeria, Wright became "the invisible man," eluding authorities by blending into communities across Europe and Africa.
  • His time in Guinea Bissau was marked by community service—digging wells, coaching basketball, acting as a model citizen [29:37-32:50]—yet his criminal past was an "open secret" to some locals.

5. The Long Hunt: Law Enforcement’s Pursuit

• Decades of Investigation [17:15-24:37]

  • Retired FBI agent RJ Gallagher spent 17 years hunting Wright, using digital age enhancement, international leads, and old-fashioned detective work.
  • The task force traced Wright from Atlantic City to New York, Detroit (where he became involved with the Black Panthers), Europe, and West Africa.

• Breakthrough and Arrest [34:40-38:17]

  • 2011, Portugal: After years of searching, authorities identified and arrested Wright (living under the alias Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos).
  • "I walk out of the door and these guys surrounds me... called me by my name." – George Wright [36:42]
  • Despite the "relief," Patterson's family soon learned Portugal would not extradite Wright due to his new citizenship. [38:56-39:41]

6. Justice Denied and Family Advocacy

• Legal Defeat and Outrage [39:41-42:18]

  • The Portuguese courts twice refused U.S. extradition requests.
  • "Failure of extradition makes a mockery of the crime against my father." – Family Testimony [42:03]

• Lingering Effects, Mixed Feelings, Moral Debate

  • Wright expresses remorse but denies direct responsibility: "I would like to apologize to her...Hopefully she would forgive me. He did. Really, I would." – George Wright [40:44]
  • Walter McGee remains unapologetic: "I'm apologizing for nothing that happened 40–50 years ago." [41:20]
  • U.S. law asserts Wright's equal culpability, regardless of who fired the fatal shot.

• Patterson Family’s Ongoing Pain

  • Ann Patterson reflects on loss, legacy, and refusing to be further haunted by the past. [43:46-44:44]
  • Law enforcement satisfaction is limited: "I don't think he should feel comfortable ever." – RJ Gallagher [43:35]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Corrosive Reach of Crime:
  "It's not just that one person gets shot. That shot reverberates through everybody else. My grandfather never got to see his daughters grow up." – Ann Patterson’s daughter [13:29]

• Victim's Endurance:
  "I probably was like a little soldier or a zombie all through high school... After that point, the pictures kind of stop. The family did stop. Her family ended at that point." – Ann Patterson [11:23]

• On Law Enforcement’s Commitment:
  "Put yourself in this situation. It was your father. You would hope that there's people out there that will never give up." – RJ Gallagher [34:40]

• On Moral Responsibility:
  "If he wasn't a killer, he never would have picked up the weapon and gone in there... George Wright is as guilty of murder as the guy who actually fired that bullet." – Ann Patterson [40:15]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:09-03:18] – The robbery and murder of Walter Patterson
• [10:02-10:40] – Walter Patterson’s dying account helps identify suspects
• [14:22-16:01] – Wright’s prison experience and escape
• [18:43-23:35] – The Delta hijacking, demands, and aftermath
• [28:42-33:27] – Wright’s reinvention in Africa; community testimonials
• [34:40-38:17] – The modern pursuit, Portugal arrest, and denied extradition
• [40:53-42:18] – Family’s testimony, failed justice, Capitol Hill advocacy
• [43:35-44:44] – Wright on the run again, Ann Patterson’s final reflections

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Tone & Language

The tone alternates between investigative—methodical, factual, and detailed—and profoundly personal, channeling both the pain of loss and the frustration of impunity. Contributors, especially Ann Patterson and her family, speak with a mix of grief, resolve, and yearning for justice; law enforcement is depicted as dogged and principled. Wright’s own words oscillate between self-justification, performative remorse, and deflection. The storytelling invites empathy but delivers an unflinching look at consequence and unfinished justice.

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Closing Reflection

“Hunting Down Mr. Wright” is not just a crime procedural; it’s a meditation on how justice can evade even the most determined, how trauma resonates through generations, and what it means to pursue—and sometimes lose—a reckoning. As Ann Patterson puts it:
“If I had life, I should live it and live it the best way that I can.” [43:46]

Recommended for listeners who seek both an intricate true crime saga and a deeper understanding of how crimes echo far beyond the initial act.

Transcript

[RJ Gallagher]

Possibility means you have a chance. Passion opens the door to all possibilities.

[Ann Patterson]

When I feel like anything's possible, I feel kind of giddy. I want to be an astronaut, an artist, be an actress to visit another country.

[RJ Gallagher]

All I need is a backpack and a pair of shoes and I'll find.

[Ann Patterson]

A way I'm able to do anything I set my mind to.

[RJ Gallagher]

I've never felt like more things are possible than right now. In the right shoes, anything's possible.

[Ann Patterson]

DSW countless shoes at brag worthy prices.

[RJ Gallagher]

And imagine the possibilities. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Ann Patterson]

Of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com wow. House has definitely seen better days. This is the window I stood in when I waved goodbye to my dad the last time growing up, my mother never talked about the fear she felt while trying to raise her family. She remained strong for us. I had this little two wheeler. I ended up down there in the road, almost in the road. And I said, daddy, where were you? And he said, you did it. My grandfather, Walter Patterson was murdered. One of the people who is responsible for doing it is still not paying for what he has done.

[RJ Gallagher]

For 17 years I worked on a case involving a fugitive named George Wright.

[Ann Patterson]

My father was brutally beaten and shot in a robbery of his gas station. It haunts me to this day.

[RJ Gallagher]

It all started right there in 1962 when Mr. Walter Patterson was closing up his gas station. Mr. Patterson was a war hero, combat veteran, World War II, received a bronze star.

[Ann Patterson]

The ironic thing was that he came through the war only to have this happen to him.

[RJ Gallagher]

The night of the incident, two young men came right through that door with loaded weapons. George Wright and his partner said, this is a robbery. Get him up. Walter Patterson put up a heck of a fight.

[Ann Patterson]

He was beaten so severely that he was unrecognizable.

[RJ Gallagher]

George Wright was caught two days later. The guy gets convicted, sentenced to prison. You would think the case would be closed. But he escapes from prison. He hijacks an airplane. He threatens to kill people A Delta.

[Ann Patterson]

Airlines jet was taken over by eight, fled the country, became a fugitive.

[RJ Gallagher]

George Wright has been on a run for 40 weeks. Essentially, he just vanished. Wright has an uncanny ability to escape.

[Ann Patterson]

I hope he's looking over his shoulder, wondering who's a few steps behind him.

[RJ Gallagher]

My partners and I are determined to be the ones that apprehend George Wright and keep working his case until he's back behind bars in the state of New Jersey. I got a phone call that it's 100% your guy. We had photos, we had fingerprints. We knew that he had false teeth. We knew he had scars. You could see a scar on the forehead.

[Ann Patterson]

That's this right here.

[RJ Gallagher]

That's correct. Our job, our responsibility is to find this man. He is a very smart adversary.

[Ann Patterson]

From old photos to artist sketches, you have no idea which of these looks the most like George Wright.

[RJ Gallagher]

No.

[Ann Patterson]

This is very creepy. Even to a lifelike plaster bust they.

[RJ Gallagher]

Created that is an age enhanced bust.

[Ann Patterson]

It's almost as if the fugitive George Wright himself were watching them.

[RJ Gallagher]

That's how he got away, taunting the.

[Ann Patterson]

Three man task force that's been on a manhunt to find him around the.

[RJ Gallagher]

World.

[Ann Patterson]

And across the decades. This is what this person would look like 40 years later.

[RJ Gallagher]

That's correct.

[Ann Patterson]

For R.J. gallagher, recently retired from the FBI. Rick Cope of the U.S. marshals and Dan Klotz of the New Jersey Department of Corrections. The saga begins with Wright's involvement in the murder of war hero Walter Patterson in 1962. And right here, there was a big tree, and next to it, Daddy had built us a sandbox.

[RJ Gallagher]

He hurt this family. He's got to pay for what he did.

[Ann Patterson]

The crime is senseless. There are triggers throughout the year. His birthday, the day he got shot, the day he died. This is the house that I grew up in, spent my early years here. Today, a lot of her past is boarded up and paved over. And for decades, Walter Patterson's daughter Ann tried to keep it that way. Oh, that was fun. Her daughters, Terry and Jackie, never actually knew their grandfather and never knew why it was never spoken of in the house at all. We knew it was a quiet subject for a reason and not to bring it up. Fifty years after his murder, I welcome Ann Patterson, who along with her family, have suffered irreparable harm from the brutal violence committed against her beloved father by George Wright. Walter Patterson's granddaughters are spearheading their mother's fight to finally bring George Wright to justice. My father was robbed, brutally beaten and shot in his gas station in Wall Township, New Jersey. I was 14 years old. The nightmare was just beginning. Her whole timeline of her life just shifted. Anne was born in 1947. Her father Walter, served on the front lines in World War II, coming home with a Bronze Star. Back in New Jersey, he opened a small gas station, abandoned but still standing today. After dinner, on November 23, 1962, he left home and headed back to work. And I did what I always did. I stood in the window and I went like this. And he waved to me. That was the last time I saw him Alive. After spending 17 of his 25 years at the FBI on this case, RJ Gallagher knows every detail of what happened next.

[RJ Gallagher]

It was a simple robbery of a gas station.

[Ann Patterson]

Just after 9:00pm, a black and white sedan pulled into Patterson Station. Two men went inside. A pair of short order cooks Named Walter McGee, then. 22.

[RJ Gallagher]

I had a gun. I had it in my waist, a.32.

[Ann Patterson]

And George Wright, 19. Wright had a sawed off.22 rifle. They demanded Walter Patterson's money, all $70 of it.

[RJ Gallagher]

Here's a guy that fought for his country. Now somebody's coming in and trying to take his piece of America. That's what he fought for.

[Ann Patterson]

And he put up a hell of a fight this time, too. According to RJ Gallagher, the gunman beat Patterson savagely.

[RJ Gallagher]

Walter Patterson made a launch for me. We got to tussling and they started hitting him about the head with their weapons. They knocked him to the ground and I pulled up my gun. Nobody was thinking about going in, shooting nobody. You know, I think my mind just froze up on me.

[Ann Patterson]

In his decades as a fugitive, George Wright has been as elusive to reporters as to authorities, though he did speak to Mike Finkel for a GQ magazine exclusive titled Uncatchable. Finkel taped the interview in which Wright paints himself as an almost innocent bystander.

[RJ Gallagher]

And you probably just were standing there with my mouth open. Probably. Do you remember seeing any blood or anything like that? No. I didn't even look at the guy. Tell you the truth, I was shaking like crazy. Then McGee also, he had shot the guy. Didn't know whether it had killed him or not.

[Ann Patterson]

Police found bullets and casings, but couldn't say for sure how many shots were fired or by whom. For Walter Patterson, it didn't matter.

[RJ Gallagher]

It went into his abdomen, it went through his kidney and his liver, and the bullet never exited.

[Ann Patterson]

The robbers fled. Minutes later. Ann's daughter Terry says passing motorists found Patterson barely conscious. He was beaten so severely. And then it took like what, 10 or 12 like numerous hours to try to piece together his skull. Two days later, Walter Patterson died, but not before describing his attackers and their car. It's amazing that he could give that much information.

[RJ Gallagher]

He definitely helped to solve his own homicide.

[Ann Patterson]

Police soon found the car and within 48 hours they had the driver along with the two gunmen, Walter McGee and George Wright. To avoid the death penalty, Both Wright and McGee pled no contest to murder. The fatal bullet matched Walter McGee's gun. He got life. George Wright got 15 to 30 years. I felt safe then because then they were in jail that night.

[RJ Gallagher]

In jail, the reality of it hit me. Minimum 15, maximum 30 years in New Jersey State Prison. Just saying that at the end of the world.

[Ann Patterson]

For Ann Patterson too, it felt like the end of the world. You look at the clock and write, daddy should be coming home. And he's not coming home. And you gotta remind yourself of that. You still call him daddy. He will always be my daddy. Because there's a part of me that's still 14 years old. I probably was like a little soldier or a zombie all through high school. I don't have a lot of memories of it. I just did what I had to do and immersed myself in my schoolwork. And there's school pictures and so forth. After that point, the pictures kind of stop. The family did stop. Her family ended at that point. Living moment to moment, she struggled through high school and gave up any hope of college. Then one August day, nearly eight years after the murder, Ann's past caught up with her. And my aunt Jenny called me up and said, ann, George Wright has escaped. She said, lock your doors. And that was only the beginning. Prison breaks, hijackings. Fleeing from country to country to country. It's a roller coaster ride. You know, you just wonder, what's next? What's the next twist? What's the next turn? This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. Get this. Adults with financial literacy skills have 82% more wealth than those who don't.

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[Ann Patterson]

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[Ann Patterson]

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[RJ Gallagher]

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[Ann Patterson]

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[Ann Patterson]

Turn those what ifs into why nots with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month [e-mail] specialoffer that's shopify.com specialoffer it's not just that one person gets shot. That shot reverberates through everybody else. My grandfather never got to see his daughters grow up. He never got to see them get married. He never got to watch them have their children. And that was because of George Wright. By the summer of 1970, George Wright had served nearly eight years of his 15 to 30 year sentence for his involvement in Walter Patterson's murder.

[RJ Gallagher]

When I walked into this jail and they closed them doors behind me, it just seemed like that I was closed off from the world.

[Ann Patterson]

Despite his crimes, in those GQ magazine tapes, Wright portrays himself as a victim of society and a champion of social justice.

[RJ Gallagher]

Society would say, hey, you did that. It's against the law. But people all through history that have been struggling against the power structure have always been called criminals or outlaws.

[Ann Patterson]

So at that time, it looks like George Wright is going to be in prison at least 15 years.

[RJ Gallagher]

Correct.

[Ann Patterson]

But Wright had a very different plan. After serving part of his time in a maximum security facility, George Wright was transferred to a minimum security prison here in southern New Jersey. At the time, there were no bars, no razor wire, and no problem with simply walking away just after the 11pm Bed check on August 22, 1970. That's exactly what he and three others did.

[RJ Gallagher]

We walked off in the night. There were guards around, armed with a.

[Ann Patterson]

Few tools and an audacious plan. They weren't on foot for long.

[RJ Gallagher]

They decided to take the warden's car and and flee to Atlantic City.

[Ann Patterson]

They hotwired the warden's car?

[RJ Gallagher]

Yes. I read that you stole the warden's car. Is that true? I don't make no comment on that. I think that that is funny. I bet he didn't.

[Ann Patterson]

Police found the car and quickly recaptured two of the men. But George Wright and the fourth inmate had vanished. These people are walking the streets. You don't know where they're going to go. As the years turned to decades, with George Wright still on the loose, Ann Patterson lost hope that authorities ever would find him. So she was shocked when 24 years after the prison escape, FBI agent RJ Gallagher called to introduce himself. He was genuinely interested in my father's case. What Reassurances could you give her?

[RJ Gallagher]

At that point, I said I would work as hard as we could and do what we could to find this guy.

[Ann Patterson]

He told her it was a long shot. The Bureau had destroyed the Patterson case file long ago, and Gallagher didn't even know if Wright was still alive. So where do you start?

[RJ Gallagher]

Friends, acquaintances, relatives? We checked phones, we checked emails. There was nothing that was off the table.

[Ann Patterson]

Suspecting Wright was overseas, Gallagher sent Interpol the fingerprints taken at his 1962 arrest. He also digitally age enhanced Wright's mugshot to show what he might look like years later.

[RJ Gallagher]

About halfway through this, the U.S. marshals and the Department of Corrections joined and we formed a nice team. It was the perfect storm of investigators.

[Ann Patterson]

Rick Cope and Dan Klotz were on a fugitive task force also looking at the case when they teamed up with Gallagher in 2002.

[RJ Gallagher]

So we only had very, very minimal information on the actual original crime.

[Ann Patterson]

Following the smallest of leads, often working nights and weekends.

[RJ Gallagher]

9:00 o' clock at night, 10:00 clock at night. Hey, look at this. Look at that.

[Ann Patterson]

They learn that after his escape, George Wright spent time in Atlantic City, then New York. Once working as of all things, for a fugitive, a male model.

[RJ Gallagher]

Until I realized what I was doing because I was on the run at the time, having your picture taken. That was the end of my mother.

[Ann Patterson]

He made his way to this house in Detroit and there was a bunch.

[RJ Gallagher]

Of people living there. It was like a family, so to speak. It was in Detroit that we became affiliated with the Black Panthers.

[Ann Patterson]

The Panthers had burst onto the scene in 1966 with a radical philosophy for the time. Revolution through militant action. Action, Speak slower in words. Wright, along with four others, hatched a plan to leave white America behind.

[RJ Gallagher]

At the time, we wanted to become more active in the strokes so that people would see that we were for.

[Ann Patterson]

Real and make an outrageous statement in the process. A Delta Airlines jet from Detroit to Miami was taken over by eight passengers. July 31, 1972. Delta Air Lines Flight 841 was boarding passengers in Detroit headed for Miami. Captain William May remembers seeing a priest.

[RJ Gallagher]

He gestured towards me with his Bible as he went back towards his seat. I said, well, a priest, nice to have him aboard. Won't have any trouble with this guy.

[Ann Patterson]

That Bible was hollowed out with a handgun inside. Undetected by the lax security of the day. Mid flight, Captain May came out of the lavatory to find a passenger pointing a gun at him. And back in the cockpit was a second gunman. That innocent looking priest the priest had.

[RJ Gallagher]

This girl flight attendant round like this with a pistol pointed to her head and the pistol was cocked. And I said, look, uncock that gun. We can talk. I said, now what do you want? He says, we want a million dollars. We want to go to Algiers. And I said, algiers? I said, where the hell is Algiers? I said, this airplane won't fly to Algiers.

[Ann Patterson]

At 41, May was still a junior pilot. He'd never even flown all the way across the ocean. The plane taxied to a remote area of Miami International Airport. One of the men was dressed as a priest. Investigators soon identified the priest as George Wright. Fueled by a mixture of radical politics and rage against the system, George Wright was about to become one of the most wanted fugitives in America. Captain May made the announcement. That's when people start screaming.

[RJ Gallagher]

He terrorized some people on that plane. You don't bring a gun on an airplane and expect something good to happen. Don't think there was another airplane hijacking today.

[Ann Patterson]

A Delta Airlines jet from Detroit to Miami was taken over by eight passengers. The hijackers are described as three men, two women and three children. One of the men was dressed as a priest. When I saw the hijacking on TV I thought, oh, those poor passengers. Ann Patterson was watching the news that July day in 1972 and soon found out who the lead hijacker was. I remember how afraid I was the night that my father was shot. So I wondered if they were going to come out of it alive themselves. When Delta841 from Detroit landed in Miami, the gun toting priest made the hijacker's demands crystal clear. CBS News cameras were there.

[RJ Gallagher]

The hijackers demanded $1 million in small bills, the largest amount ever in an airplane ransom.

[Ann Patterson]

You now understand that this is deadly serious.

[RJ Gallagher]

Yes, they really seem that determined determination.

[Ann Patterson]

You can hear on the cockpit recordings Captain William May identifies as from that day more than 40 years later, May returned with us to the Miami airport and recalled how hard it was to be cool. What did they say would happen if you didn't go ahead and do what they said?

[RJ Gallagher]

That's when they said he would start throwing a body out. That every minute that's at 2 o' clock and you've got 15 minutes. So that's what we gonna do. I'm not jiving.

[Ann Patterson]

Adding to the surreal atmosphere, Wright's team of hijackers insisted that an FBI agent deliver the million dollars to the plane and that he be naked. So they want to make sure that the FBI agent giving the money has no weapon.

[RJ Gallagher]

No weapon, exactly.

[Ann Patterson]

Captain May thought that was a bit much and helped convince Wright and the others to let the agent at least wear a bathing suit.

[RJ Gallagher]

We didn't want violence and that with short pants we would ensure that they had no weapons. And that's exactly why we did it.

[Ann Patterson]

What happened when the money came to the plane, they brought it up by rope. Passengers were terrified. People were definitely panicking. Once the money was transferred, the hijackers released the 86 passengers unharmed, including 25 year old Elaine Otiver. Well, when we got off the plane, we were all standing out like in the middle of the Runway. People were crying and it was very emotional because now we're off. But they're onto their next phase of this ordeal. We didn't know if they would ever make it alive.

[RJ Gallagher]

Did the hijackers say where they wanted to go or did you talk with them at all?

[Ann Patterson]

No. Stewardess said they wanted to go to Algiers, Algeria. At the time, it was a haven for exiled Black Panthers and other militants. The hijackers were now frantic to get there with a million dollars in cash and seven Delta crew members in tow.

[RJ Gallagher]

The buses drove away and Wright, he kept. He would put the pistol right in my neck, said, get going, get going.

[Ann Patterson]

But before they got underway to Algeria, the plane had to stop in Boston for extra fuel and a navigator. They made him strip down as well.

[RJ Gallagher]

More than 50 FBI agents and state police were staked out at the Boston airport.

[Ann Patterson]

George Wright kept a gun on Captain May and ordered him to take off again. So the plane headed out over the dark Atlantic Ocean for a flight into the unknown. Did you have any extensive conversations with any of them on this?

[RJ Gallagher]

Not at that point.

[Ann Patterson]

So we're done talking now.

[RJ Gallagher]

We're done talking. We're going to Algiers now.

[Ann Patterson]

Before landing, the captain tried to reason with with George Wright one last time.

[RJ Gallagher]

I said, look down there. I said, I don't know how bad things were in Detroit, but I said, you're not going to like it here, I can tell you that.

[Ann Patterson]

As he taxied to a stop, Captain May remembers, he wasn't too crazy about it himself.

[RJ Gallagher]

All these guys sprang out of the bushes with rifles pointed at the cockpit. I thought, hmm, whose side are they on here?

[Ann Patterson]

Algerian officials granted asylum to the hijackers, who promptly held a press conference with George Wright center stage. The Algerians soon returned the plane and the million dollars. Wright and company disappeared into the sprawling city. This is like the beginning of terrorism. I remember the shock. I mean, everybody was shocked of this, shocked especially Ann Patterson remembers because she just assumed that once Wright's identity was known as he'd be caught, period. I thought, they're going to get him now. They're finally going to catch him and this is going to be it. The others were caught and imprisoned about four years later in France. But George Wright would remain uncatchable for four more decades. It's crazy. It's just one thing after another that he got away with. It was a game for him, in part by hiding in the the last place on earth anyone would think to look and by living an extraordinary double life.

[RJ Gallagher]

Could this be the same person? It just doesn't seem fathomable.

[Ann Patterson]

Deborah had to have surgery.

[RJ Gallagher]

I had hip surgery in November of 2024.

[Ann Patterson]

Her United Healthcare nurse, Crystal, checked on her.

[RJ Gallagher]

We do a routine call after surgery.

[Ann Patterson]

And I could tell that she, Deborah, needed help. My infection markers were through the roof.

[RJ Gallagher]

And Crystal knew what to do. I called the hospital and said, she's coming in and got Debra the help she needed.

[Ann Patterson]

Crystal and United Healthcare saved my life.

[RJ Gallagher]

Hear more stories like Debra'[e-mail] benefits, features and or devices vary by plan. Area limitation and exclusions apply.

[Ann Patterson]

Now Streaming.

[RJ Gallagher]

Hi again, TV's quirkiest crime solver.

[Ann Patterson]

I'm Elspeth Tasioni. I work with the police.

[RJ Gallagher]

It's on the case.

[Ann Patterson]

I like my outlandish theories with a heavy dose of evidence and ready to go toe to toe with a cavalcade of guest stars.

[RJ Gallagher]

Are you saying that this is now a murder investigation?

[Ann Patterson]

It's starting to look that way. Don't miss a moment of the critically acclaimed hit Elsbeth.

[RJ Gallagher]

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[Ann Patterson]

That sounds like fun.

[RJ Gallagher]

Obviously, murder's not fun. Your burger is served. And this is our finest Pepsi. Zero sugar. Its sweet profile perfectly balances the savory notes of your burger.

[Ann Patterson]

That is one perfect combination. Burgers deserve Pepsi. A Delta Airlines jet from Detroit to Miami was taken over by the hijackers.

[RJ Gallagher]

Demanded $1 million in small bills. He was brazen and intelligent. He was intelligent.

[Ann Patterson]

George Wright left Algeria not long after the hijacking and became the invisible man.

[RJ Gallagher]

He's a bad criminal. I don't know how he keeps ducking.

[Ann Patterson]

Successfully ducking by drifting around France, Germany and Portugal, his pursuers say, until he first found the perfect place to hide. Investigators now know that in the early 1980s, George Wright left Western Europe and came here to the tiny West African country of Guinea Bissau. Believe it or not, he appears to have come to do good deeds. And help the poor.

[RJ Gallagher]

I began to get into the scheme of things after I met people. I was invited to their homes, to their parties and stuff like that, and I began to know people. Doesn't seem fathomable.

[Ann Patterson]

When aid worker Curtis reed arrived in 1989, he says Wright was helping dig wells for villagers in Guinea Bissau, whose Marxist government was then decidedly sympathetic to revolutionary ideas. How did he say he had come to be in Guinea Bissau?

[RJ Gallagher]

That this was a place that he.

[Ann Patterson]

Wanted to be and humanitarian that he was.

[RJ Gallagher]

There's nothing to contradict that. He fooled a lot of people. Working in guinea was fun. I had a lot of fun. I didn't even consider it working.

[Ann Patterson]

Reed says Wright made himself indispensable.

[RJ Gallagher]

He was the fixer, the facilitator, the person to go to if you needed an extra propane gas bottle, find a plumber or an electrician.

[Ann Patterson]

You called him a model citizen.

[RJ Gallagher]

For my money, you know, he was that.

[Ann Patterson]

A model citizen who married the daughter of an influential Portuguese general and had two kids.

[RJ Gallagher]

He was a very dedicated father and spouse, very strong family man. I was totally floored by the revelations that he had been involved with a murder, he had hijacked a plane, that he was on the lam. It was inconceivable. I knew that there was this robbery. I knew that a person got killed. I knew that he felt guilty. I met him in 89.

[Ann Patterson]

Hannes Stegemann, a German who ran a local development project, claims George Wright's criminal past was an open secret in Guinea Bissau. Wright lived there for 13 years, eventually getting citizenship under a different name.

[RJ Gallagher]

He was always the black American who found asylum in Guinea Bissau. And he was seen as a kind.

[Ann Patterson]

Of hero, apparently doing good works.

[RJ Gallagher]

Very good. Very good.

[Ann Patterson]

This video, taken when Wright was a fugitive in Africa, shows him on the job. Stegman hired him for a project to help fishermen bring their catch to this market.

[RJ Gallagher]

Everybody knew George Wright. He seemed a very pleasant, nice young man.

[Ann Patterson]

Everybody, including John Blacken, who was U.S. ambassador to Guinea Bissau from 1986 to 1989.

[RJ Gallagher]

I would suspect that I invited him to the Fourth of July party.

[Ann Patterson]

Are you a little appalled by that today?

[RJ Gallagher]

Well, it's hard to be appalled by somebody that seemed to have a good reputation locally, and you had no inkling of what his past was.

[Ann Patterson]

Even 30 years later. It isn't hard finding people here who have nice things to say about George Wright. He lived right here. Do you know who that is?

[RJ Gallagher]

Yes, he's George Wright, my friend. He did a lot of basketball training, and kids admired him.

[Ann Patterson]

So this is where you played? Pedro del Mana says the American he knew as Jack taught youngsters in the area a lot about basketball and about life. Did you go over to his house a lot as a kid? Every day.

[RJ Gallagher]

Every day. I think the people, Guinea Basau, that feel that he was a good man, they were fooled. They didn't really realize what he was capable of doing. The real George Wright, in our opinion, is a George Wright who acted so violently here.

[Ann Patterson]

George Wright left Guinea Bissau in 1993. At the time, investigators had no idea he'd ever been been there to begin with. He did help the people in Africa, and that's great for them. But so what? Says Ann Patterson's daughter Terry, that doesn't change what he did to my mother and her family. What he did say Terry and Jackie, makes their mother fearful to this day. She says she doesn't go to gas stations.

[RJ Gallagher]

She doesn't.

[Ann Patterson]

She doesn't go to hospitals. She does not. My mother has 12 grandchildren and did not go to the hospital for the births of any of them. She physically is unable to step foot into a hospital. The room starts spinning. The smell of the hospital brings her back to that time when she was 14 years old. That there is a price to pay for what he's done. You can't start over until you pay your debt. Decline is senseless. Then, in the fall of 2011, Ann Patterson learned it might be payback time. RJ said to me, just stick around the house for the next couple of weeks. He said we might be onto something. RJ Gallagher, Rick Cope, and Dan Klotz had been locked in this cat and mouse game for more than a decade.

[RJ Gallagher]

Put yourself in this situation. It was your father. You would hope that there's people out there that will never give up.

[Ann Patterson]

When almost 50 years after Walter Patterson's murder, the trio tracking George Wright finally hit pay dirt.

[RJ Gallagher]

Got a phone call that it's 100% your guy. The police started following him from his residence. They got him to this location. That's when they approached him.

[Ann Patterson]

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[RJ Gallagher]

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[Ann Patterson]

Tell me what unfolded here.

[RJ Gallagher]

This is where the Portuguese police arrested George Wright.

[Ann Patterson]

On September 26, 2011, George Wright's life as an international fugitive came to an unceremonious end.

[RJ Gallagher]

An American fugitive is captured overseas when.

[Ann Patterson]

Police cornered him in this cafe near Lisbon.

[RJ Gallagher]

I walk out of the door and these guys surrounds me. How many? About six or seven called me by my name.

[Ann Patterson]

He'd come to Portugal in 1993 from Africa, where he had changed his name to Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos. Now 68, a handyman and painter living with his family in this tiny coastal town. He even had a Facebook page. So a print from his original arrest.

[RJ Gallagher]

Yes.

[Ann Patterson]

Matches a print that the Portuguese have on file.

[RJ Gallagher]

Yes.

[Ann Patterson]

But in terms of what led you to ask the Portuguese to match this print? Good teamwork, phone taps, those things.

[RJ Gallagher]

We can't discuss it. I'd love to tell you we just can't do it. Can't tell it.

[Ann Patterson]

You're just not going to go there.

[RJ Gallagher]

We're not going to go there.

[Ann Patterson]

After 17 years on the case, RJ Gallagher had retired just six weeks before the arrest. But Rick Cope and Dan Klotz were at the Portuguese police station when Wright was brought in for questioning. So he walked by you, you looked at this guy that you've been looking for for almost a decade. What went through your mind?

[RJ Gallagher]

He looked very angry, which was very rewarding to me personally. One of the questions was, where had I been before I came here? I told him, get himself, and where you been before that? I said, in France. Then they asked me, what about Algiers? And I said, okay, let's put the cards on the table.

[Ann Patterson]

He readily admitted he was George Wright.

[RJ Gallagher]

I did not kill anyone.

[Ann Patterson]

And soon asked for a lawyer. Back in New Jersey, FBI agents gave Ann Patterson the news she thought she might never hear. I was outside hanging up clothes and this car pulled in, and I thought, this is it. And he said, ann, we Got him. We got him. It's shock. I mean, it's just shock. It is relief. But the Pattersons relief quickly turned to outrage and astonishment when incredibly, after more than 40 years as a fugitive, George Wright was set free.

[RJ Gallagher]

Oh man.

[Ann Patterson]

Just days after his arrest.

[RJ Gallagher]

Do you think you should be further punished for anything you've done? What do you think? No punishing yourself.

[Ann Patterson]

The Portuguese courts twice dismissed American demands for extradition, ruling that despite his phony identification, Wright was in fact a Portuguese citizen now. And by their law, they were not obligated to turn him over. I did not understand how it could be possible. Nothing was going to get done legally. That little smile on his face in all those pictures in the newspaper, that doesn't cut it for me. It's crazy. He's pretty much getting away with all of it.

[RJ Gallagher]

He did tell me about being in jail. First I thought he was just, you know, pulling my leg.

[Ann Patterson]

Bright's wife says her husband is well liked and known for his devotion to charity and to the church. She spoke to AP Television in the picturesque village they now call home.

[RJ Gallagher]

He regrets the choices he has made. I've asked God to forgive me for even being involved and I think God has forgiven me. I really don't think a leopard changes a.

[Ann Patterson]

If he wasn't a killer, he never would have picked up the weapon and gone in there. So as far as you're concerned, George Wright is as guilty of murder as the guy who actually fired that bullet. Yeah. Because at any point he could have turned away.

[RJ Gallagher]

I accompanied someone that committed a crime and they sentenced me on that particular aspect.

[Ann Patterson]

Though he disputes some of the details of that night, George Wright does express remorse for what he did.

[RJ Gallagher]

I would like to apologize to her and act. Hopefully she would forgive me. He did. Really, I would.

[Ann Patterson]

But he still insists that Ann is blaming him for what he didn't do.

[RJ Gallagher]

Really? I cannot understand why she would be so angry with me today, with me personally. I didn't kill the guy.

[Ann Patterson]

Like Wright, the man whose bullet did kill Patterson disputes authorities account of the crime. But Walter McGhee is decidedly not apologetic.

[RJ Gallagher]

I'm apologizing for nothing that happened 50, 40, 50 years ago.

[Ann Patterson]

After nearly 15 years in prison, Magee is out on parole today and thinks Wright beat the rap.

[RJ Gallagher]

If George Wright was sitting there right now, I would punch him in his face. His gun didn't kill him, but he was standing right in there with me.

[Ann Patterson]

Under US law, Wright's as guilty as if he'd fired the shot last summer. With no obvious way to Bring him to justice. Three generations of Pattersons made an appeal on Capitol Hill. How are you? RJ Gallagher at their side. The failure of extradition makes a mockery of the crime against my father. He would never be able to walk his daughters down the aisle on their wedding day or enjoy the births of their children.

[RJ Gallagher]

This is unjust. This is a travesty. This is.

[Ann Patterson]

A former State Department official shocked the hearing by suggesting a radical solution such.

[RJ Gallagher]

As snatching Wright as he's going about his day to day business and then bringing him to the United States to face justice. Well, he ended up in a very nice part of the world.

[Ann Patterson]

The growing attention since his arrest apparently has spooked George Wright. Yes, I'm trying to reach George Wright, please. Who's speaking? My name's Susan Spencer. I'm from cbs. Susan Spencer from cbs.

[RJ Gallagher]

Thank you, but no.

[Ann Patterson]

Can you at least just talk to me? Over a period of 10 days, we kept watch on his house, seems pretty deserted. And realized that remarkably George Wright had vanished again. He appears to have gone back into hiding ever since the hearing and Washington.

[RJ Gallagher]

Ah, I think that he might have gotten frightened.

[Ann Patterson]

Retired FBI agent R.J. gallagher, whom we brought to Portugal, says if they can't get him back, the idea of George Wright running scared is fine with him.

[RJ Gallagher]

Living on the lamb again. And he's looking over his shoulder. He's waiting for the shoe to drop. I don't think he should feel comfortable ever.

[Ann Patterson]

Whether or not the past still haunts George Wright, Ann Patterson refuses to let the past haunt her anymore. A lot of times I would think, what would daddy want me to do? He would not want me to sit in the corner crying until death overtook me. Where's your dimples? If I had life, I should live it and live it the best way that I can. If your father had lived, he would be 92 years old. 92 years old. What do you think he would think as far as how you've all turned out? I think he'd be proud of us. And specifically of you. I hope so. Is this a hit?

[RJ Gallagher]

It situations whatever kind of adventure we want it to be. Now streaming on Paramount. Plus it's an all new season of adventures. We have to stop this invasion.

[Ann Patterson]

Get this crew is a team. We are going to find our way out of this together.

[RJ Gallagher]

Chaos. It's one in a thousand. We get it done right or don't blow ourselves up along the way. I like those odds. We'll just turn it off before we blow up. Star Trek Strange New Worlds New Season now streaming on Paramount + September 4th on Paramount + someone is trying to frame us until our names are cleared.

[Ann Patterson]

More fugitives from Interval like Bonnie and.

[RJ Gallagher]

Clyde with better snacks. NCIS Tony and Ziva streaming September 4th on Paramount Plus.