It was the summer of 1973 sunshine-filled afternoons the smell of the fresh air in the Adirondack mountains. ZZ Top, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, and Rolling Stone's new albums playing, The Knicks won the NBA Title, Skylab the first US space station launched, and things were pretty OK until a manhunt broke out in the Adirondacks.
Let’s stick with the 1970s a wild time not only in the US but NY. There is a lot of good but even more bad that is going on not only in the US but the world. As mentioned in a previous episode the Texas Killing Fields was going on and so were some other serial killers. This one is fairly close to home. The Adirondacks.
The Adirondack Mountains are a massif of mountains in Northeastern New York that form a circular dome approximately 160 miles wide and covering about 5,000 square miles. Not an ideal place to have to have a manhunt. Especially in the 70’s when technology was not nearly as good as it is today.
12 crazy nights are something that these residents had to go through. This story starts in a heavily wooded area near the intersection of Route 8 and 30 in the town of Wells. Wells is in Hamilton County in NY with a population of 674 according to the last census. Four kids were camping when an unidentified man with a rifle tied them up and then proceeded to stab 18-year-old Philip Domblewski.
State Police and Hamilton County police quickly named a suspect. How did they come up with a suspect so quickly? Well, when the campers escaped and after he murdered Philip he left his car at the site and forced one of the other campers to drive him out of the area. When the other campers were able to escape they contacted the police. The abandoned car revealed that it belonged to someone by the name of Robert Garrow. A man who had a violent criminal record. Some of it is known, some unknown at this point.
Robert Garrow was born in 1936 in Dannemore but grew up in Mineville NY. Which is a town near Moriah and Lake Champlain home of the lake monster Champ. Which we might have done an episode about. Not might have we did. Anyways. He was the son of tw poor farmers and his sister would become the mother of another murderer Suzanne Basso. Garrow and siblings would claim that their parents were violent disciplinarians who regularly physically abused their children with whatever was handy, even bricks. Police were called several times throughout the years to break up violent fights between Garrow and his alcoholic father. After a particularly brutal episode when Garrow was 15, he was sent to a prison farm to work. He had a long gruesome history as a youth committing acts of bestiality with farm animals and using milk machines on himself for pleasure. Garrow joined the Air Force but was court-martialed a year later for stealing money from superior officers and spent six months in a military prison in Flordia.
He came back to NY to try to improve his life in 1957 where he married and fathered a son. His life did not improve. He was fired from several jobs and was involved in an abusive relationship with a sadist man. Robert was then charged in 1961 with first-degree rape and was given 10-20 years in prison.. He was paroled in 1968 to Syracuse as they believed he was a model inmate and was rehabilitated. Obviously, we know now that is not the case.
Soon after he gets out he commits a series of rapes and many of the victims were children. He was arrested for the rape of two very young girls that he kidnapped from an ice stand in Syracuse. Then on July 11th, the day before his scheduled court date, he raped and murdered 16-year-old Alicia Hauck in Syracuse and buried her body between his house and Syracuse University. At the time, authorities were unaware Hauck had been murdered; however, Garrow was spotted near Syracuse University and warned by his parole officer. When Garrow failed to appear in court for the official charges against him, Onondaga County Judge Ormand N. Gale issued a warrant for his arrest and charged Garrow with sexual abuse, attempted rape, unlawful imprisonment, and more crimes. On July 14th, Garrow murdered Daniel Porter and his girlfriend Susan Petz in Wevertown. As a result, a report of a missing couple in the Adirondacks came up, and the body of Porter was found by police six days later with four stab wounds.
This is when he kills Philip who was camping earlier in the episode on July 29th and after the campers and cops get his car and identify him through mug shots the manhunt for Robert Garrow and the terror in the Adirondacks continues. At the time this would be the largest manhunt in New York State history.
The manhunt turned out to be difficult as the ex-Air Force Garrow was an outdoorsman with survival skills and had the ability to survive in the Adirondacks. Being reckless on the run and his skill set was a very dangerous situation for everyone involved. Roadblocks were set up at intersections throughout Adirondack Park requiring motorists to open vehicle trunks for law enforcement to thoroughly search. Motorists were warned not to stop for anyone on foot near the roads for fear that Garrow might have tried to pose as a hitchhiker. Law enforcement carried shotguns and semi-automatic guns in their search efforts. Helicopters flew and broadcasted messages from Garrow’s wife and son to give himself up safely.
Garrow would break into camps and steal food and clothing. He would travel parallel to roads escaping police that were searching much deeper in the woods. It was even reported that many locals who didn’t already have guns would acquire them for their safety. What made this manhunt even more difficult was the large number of false reports and sightings that were occurring because of the panic and terror that set in.
It was reported that on August 5th the temperatures started to drop a bit and they were able to pick up on his movements. On August 6th, he was spotted at a Speculator gas station, and then on August 7th, authorities found out Garrow visited his sister's home in Witherbee.
After keeping an eye on the house, on August 9th, authorities followed Garrow's nephew to a nearby thicket where Garrow was hiding. Bloodhounds were used to drive him out, and Garrow ignored commands to surrender. As he took off, conservation officer Hilary LeBlanc shot Garrow and brought him down. He was shot in the foot, arm, and back and survived even though he alleged he was partially paralyzed. That was quickly deemed not true as he was treated at CVPH Medical Center in Plattsburgh and doctors confirmed he was not paralyzed.
So he’s captured the case closed, right? Well… no. During the trial for the murder of Domblewski, Garrow told his defense team that he also murdered Hauck and Petz. His lawyers confirmed the locations of the buried bodies but kept the information secret.
To protect the confidence of their client, the defense team aimed to use the information in exchange for a plea bargain. When that failed, Garrow was brought to the stand, and under oath, admitted to those two murders. One of Garrow's lawyers was brought to trial over the public outrage, but he was exonerated. However, the ethics of keeping Garrow's confession secret has been heavily discussed to this day.
He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He began his sentence at Clinton Correctional Facility a maximum facility in Dannemora. Due to his alleged paralysis, however, he repeatedly requested transfer to the Elderly and Handicapped Unit (minimum security) within the medium-security Fishkill Correctional Facility. In September 1977, a death threat against Garrow prompted his transfer to Auburn Correctional Facility (maximum security). It was not until early 1978 that he was transferred back to Fishkill. So he grew old in the Fishkill prison story over right? Nope.
Garrow escaped from Fishkill on September 8, 1978. He was in possession of a .32 caliber pistol he had obtained from his son, who concealed the weapon inside a bucket of chicken he brought to his father during a visit. Garrow then spurred another search after he was discovered missing from his cell. The false claims about his paralysis kept the guards unsuspecting, as he scaled a fifteen-foot-high (4.6 m) fence to escape the prison grounds. He waited in a nearby wooded area, remaining concealed in the brush and leaves until the search widened and he could continue running. However, Garrow was spotted by guards a few days later, a few hundred yards away from the prison walls. Garrow shot at his pursuers, wounding Correction Officer Dominic Arena in the leg, but was shot three times and killed by Correction Officer Frank Lago.
After multiple manhunts and terror throughout the Adirondacks, the killer is gone and people can rest easy in that regard and have a wild story that will carry on for generations. Would it be the only prison break in the area, nope but we can leave that for another episode.
Let’s leave you with a quote.
If things go bad and everything seems to go wrong, the best place to go is right into the remote wilderness, and everything's in balance there.” Clarence Petty.
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