THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 2, 1994 TAG: 9406020492
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE AND ROBERT LITTLE, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: 940602 LENGTH: WASHINGTON, N.C.
Midgette, 52, was being held without bond in the Beaufort County Jail on Wednesday night on charges of unlawful flight and being a fugitive from justice.
{REST} ``I'm going to sleep in a bed for the first time in five weeks,'' said Ken Gunderson, a co-worker of Midgette's who was on his hit list of intended victims.
Gunderson said he bought a gun after Midgette escaped, and slept with it every night on a couch by his front door.
Police mounted a multistate search for Midgette after he walked away from Central State Hospital in Petersburg on April 23.
Midgette had been working in a patient canteen in an unsecured area of the hospital grounds when he escaped. He had been allowed to leave the maximum security area because Central State counselors said his condition had improved.
Midgette's escape and the fear it gave his intended victims were featured on the television shows ``America's Most Wanted,'' ``48 Hours'' and ``Inside Edition.''
His capture proved as no more dramatic as his escape, however.
Beaufort County Sheriff Nelson Sheppard said Deputy Walter Johnson was on routine patrol when he spotted a man walking along N.C. Route 32, about 15 miles northeast of Washington, the county seat. He was walking toward Plymouth, although his destination and intentions were not clear.
Johnson recognized Midgette, who grew up in nearby Chocowinity, from police photographs that had been circulated throughout North Carolina by the Virginia State Police.
``I asked him if he was Thomas Midgette,'' Johnson told The Associated Press. ``He said, `Yes.' He was very cooperative and did not resist.''
Midgette, who has relatives in Beaufort County, was carrying what Sheppard described as an overnight bag containing some clothing and toiletries.
``He was extremely peaceful,'' Sheppard said.
State police were en route to Washington late Wednesday to pick up Midgette and return him to Virginia.
A judge committed Midgette, who had been living in Grandy, N.C., to Central State after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity of killing his boss, Mike Jacobs, on Feb. 2, 1990. Police caught Midgette that day hiding in woods outside Plymouth, not far from where he was caught Wednesday.
Midgette also is a suspect in the killing of another co-worker in October 1989.
Midgette had a hit list of six people he wanted dead that included Mike and Barbara Jacobs, Midgette's wife and mother and two other co-workers at Womack Contractors Inc.
``I feel like I'm a different person,'' said Jacobs' wife, Barbara, who left her Isle of Wight County home after Midgette escaped. She had remained in hiding much of the past five weeks.
``I still won't sleep tonight because I'm too excited,'' she said. ``But after I do, I'm going to talk to the people at Central State Hospital and make sure they don't let him out again.''
Central State Hospital security officials, reached late Wednesday, said they had not heard of Midgette's capture.
Ken Gunderson's wife was at church, and their three children were home asleep, when he found out Midgette had been caught.
``I called my mother,'' he said. ``She's been waiting for that call for a long time.''
Midgette suffers from a condition called ``delusional disorder,'' with a specific set of symptoms called persecution paranoia. He believed that several relatives and co-workers were conspiring to deprive him of an inheritance that did not exist.
His condition is generally considered incurable.
Gov. George F. Allen last week ordered security at Central State tightened while he and members of his Cabinet craft permanent guidelines to toughen the state's treatment of the criminally insane.
Two weeks before he murdered Jacobs, Midgette asked two friends for help in killing the six people on his hit list. Those friends told Virginia State Police of the plan, but authorities never warned the potential victims.
State police Superintendent M. Wayne Huggins said he is drafting a policy requiring that potential victims of contract killings be notified whenever police suspect they are in danger.
Lisa Noel, the Jacobses' daughter, said, ``I'm just excited they found him before he killed someone else. I was scared to death that he'd show up on my mama's doorstep.''
{KEYWORDS} ESCAPED PRISONER MENTAL ILLNESS
by CNB