Career criminal's final escape: death
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SPOKANE - Bullets whizzed past Kenneth Pendleton as guards tried to shoot him off the fence of the McNeil Island federal prison.
By the time Pendleton outran the shooting, guards had fired 62 bullets. At least seven passed through his clothes. But none hit flesh or bone, and Pendleton escaped in the episode that cemented his fame as a bank robber and jail breaker.
Pendleton eventually robbed up to 80 banks in eight states - and broke out of three prisons - but spent most of his adult life behind bars. That life came to an end shortly before his beaten and stabbed body was found Jan. 11 in a frozen creek in Canada, north of Edmonton, Alberta. Pendleton was 59.
Pendleton's daughter, Bonnie LaPierre, said her father hated authority and was obsessed with robbing banks and breaking out of prisons. "He couldn't stay in and he couldn't stay out."
Pendleton was raised on a strawberry farm outside Ferndale, Wash., one of seven children. He got into trouble with the law early in life, stealing cars, breaking into homes and blowing things up.
In 1967, Pendleton was arrested for counterfeiting.
In 1968, Pendleton broke out of the McNeil Island prison, becoming one of the few prisoners to actually get off the island. On Dec. 19, half a dozen inmates left their cells for evening church services. They slipped out a door and ran for the fences.
Pendleton was the only one to make it over the first fence. The others stopped when guards started shooting.
Pendleton didn't stay free long.
Three months later, he robbed a bank in Ferndale and was captured the next day hiding in a barn.
He was sentenced to 25 years but was paroled in less than a decade. He went right back to the criminal life.
Pendleton, then 37, was arrested for bank robbery in 1979, and again received a sentence of 25 years.
At some point he cooperated with authorities investigating a robbery of the Old National Bank in Spokane that netted $158,000. Pendleton was sent to a state prison in Bismarck, N.D., under the federal witness-protection program. But in 1981 he broke out of that prison. A few days after the escape, Pendleton robbed a bank in Glendale, Ore., of $60,000.
He remained free for more than a year, using bank-robbery money to buy a ranch near Heron, Mont.
On the run, Pendleton robbed a bank in Priest River, Idaho. Pendleton was arrested in Edmonds, Wash., shortly after the robbery.
In October 1983, Pendleton was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the Priest River robbery, bringing his cumulative sentences to 101 years.
He was paroled last June from a federal prison in Sheridan, Ore.
Law-enforcement officers believe Pendleton went right back to a life of crime. He is a suspect in four Spokane-area bank robberies.
Bonnie LaPierre wasn't surprised her father was found murdered. She figures he was killed by a criminal associate or perhaps by a person he tried to victimize.
"He was definitely someone to be locked up from society," she said.