MAN RECALLS 28 YEARS ON THE RUN

He Says Survival Meant Always Being On Guard, Lying To Some He Cared About

Charles Edward Garrett figured the jury that had just found him guilty
of heroin possession would send him away for a long time.

"I had a bad feeling," he said, "so I just dismissed
myself."

Still free on bond while jurors deliberated his sentence, Mr. Garrett
walked away, leaving his life and identity behind on Feb. 12, 1970.

By the time the jury came back with exactly what he feared - a life
sentence - Mr. Garrett was in his car headed west. He drove as far as
Weatherford and climbed aboard a bus to Los Angeles.

And the way he sees it, Charles Edward Garrett never really left
Dallas all those years ago.

"To me, I'm Kowl Emil Williams," he said Thursday.

Dallas County sheriff's deputies finally found Mr. Garrett on Monday,
right back where he started. After years on the run across America,
Mr. Garrett said, he spent the last 14 years working at the University
of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, paying taxes and
obeying the law.

Now 56, gray and dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit - reserved for
flight risks - he folded his 200 pounds into a molded plastic chair at
the Lew Sterrett Justice Center and told his story.

When he reached Los Angeles, he started to create his new identity
slowly, he said. He used a notary public to obtain a birth certificate
for himself as Kowl Emil Williams, a name suggested by a friend. Before
long, he had a Social Security card, a driver's license, credit cards
and something he never had as Charles Edward Garrett: a steady job.

Mr. Garrett was a hard-core drug addict who would have used the 23
capsules of heroin found on him in 1968 had police not arrested him
first. Mr. Williams quit drugs cold turkey and stayed within the law
as much as possible, knowing that one misstep could blow his cover and
put him in prison for life.

"When I left the courtroom that day, before that night, I was a pretty
sick person" from withdrawal symptoms, he said. "I said, 'That's not
something I'll do again.' That's why I didn't get caught for 30 years."

He said he drank heavily to get over the heroin addiction, then quit
drinking, too.

He also made it tough for the law to catch up with him by moving
constantly. After a few years in California, he bounced back to Dallas
for a couple of weeks, moved to Chicago and then to Detroit and New
York.

"I looked over my shoulder every day," he said. "I didn't trust
nobody."

He told no one his secret, not even the woman he married 16 years ago.
When he ran into people from his past, he swore to them that he was
Kowl Williams, not Charles Garrett.

"It hurt because some of these people I really cared for," he said,
fighting back tears. "I'm sorry, but I had to do what I had to do. I
thought it was right at the time."

He fathered 14 children by eight women and today has more
grandchildren than he can count. His children range in age from 2 to
38, he said.

Those who depended on his support always drew him back to North Texas,
he said. He returned to the Dallas area for good in 1984.

"I could care less about myself now. . . . My life is just about
over," he said. "There's a lot of people who depend on me. Who's going
to care for my children?"

Mr. Garrett said he agrees with those who say it would be a waste of
his time and the state's money to send him to prison after all these
years. He said those 23 capsules held only 2 or 3 grams of heroin, an
amount that probably would result in probation for a first offense
today.

"I didn't consider myself a criminal," he said. "They're getting away
with murder now."

And no matter how one views the fairness of his 1970 sentence, Mr.
Garrett said, his turnaround from drug addict to productive citizen
should cancel out his prison time.

"I believe I paid my debt to society," he said. "If I go to jail now,
what is that going to prove? What do they expect to get out of this?"

To those who say he must be punished for his original crime and his
flight from justice, Mr. Garrett said the years of lying to his loved
ones - especially his wife - is punishment enough.

"It was a big punishment to me," he said. "It don't hurt for me. I'm
hurting for someone else."

Still, Mr. Garrett knows that there is little he can do at this
point.

"If society still thinks I owe society something to them, I guess I
have to pay it," he said. "That's the state rules, so what are you
going to do?"

Checked-by: Patrick Henry