Frank Dryman, fugitive for 38 years, was running the wedding chapel

[Dakota Valkyrie]

An escaped killer who was on the lam for 38 years -- the longest any Montana offender has gone missing -- was back behind bars Wednesday, the Montana Department of Corrections said Wednesday.

Frank Dryman, 78, who killed a Shelby man nearly 60 years ago, was arrested in Arizona City, Ariz., at a wedding chapel he was operating under a fake name, the Department of Corrections said in a written statement.

Authorities found Dryman thanks to the efforts of his victim's grandson, Clem Pellett of Bellvue, Wash., who took an interest in his grandfather's murder in 2009.

On April 4, 1951, Pellett's grandfather, Clarence, stopped to pick up a hitchhiker near Shelby, Mont. The hitchhiker, 19-year-old Frank Dryman, shot Pellett to death and stole his car. He was later arrested in Canada.

Dryman was sentenced in 1955 to a life sentence in the Montana State Prison. He was paroled in 1969 and disappeared in 1972.

Clem Pellett and a private investigator worked closely with the Department of Corrections to track Dryman to Arizona, where local authorities arrested him Tuesday. Extradition proceedings are underway to bring him back to Montana.

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/new...cc4c002e0.html

Dryman initially received a hanging sentence after a quick trial in 1955. His case became the focus of a battle over the death penalty and frontier justice, and he received a new sentence of life in prison with the help of the Montana Supreme Court.

In 1969, after just 15 years in prison, he was paroled. The Montana Department of Corrections said that today, the soonest a person convicted of murder could gain parole is 30 years.

Dryman disappeared three years later. No Montana offender had been missing longer.

"He just went into thin air in 1972," said Clem Pellett, the victim's grandson. "I don't think that my grandfather's death was well represented; it just got lost in all the ideologic conversation of the time."

Pellett, a surgeon in Bellevue, Wash., pursued the case after first learning details last year while digging through old newspaper clippings in storage. He said the issue was never discussed in the family.

Pellett said he was driven by a sense of curiosity, and does not feel like he needs any revenge since he never knew his grandfather Clarence, and knew little about the murder.

Newspaper clippings from the time say that Clarence Pellett stopped to pick up Frank Dryman in 1951 during a spring blizzard near Shelby, a small town in northern Montana.

Pellett, who ran a small cafe, was shot seven times in the back as he tried to run away, according to the accounts.

The private investigator hired by the grandson used scores of documents the family dug up from old parole records, the Montana Historical Society and Internet searches to trace Dryman to the Cactus Rose Wedding Chapel.

Pellett told Montana corrections officials of the discovery. Officials said Dryman acknowledged his identity to officers. A call to the wedding chapel Wednesday was not answered.

The Montana Department of Corrections said that Dryman will be sent back to the state prison. He will face a parole revocation hearing within the next few months -- and possible resumption of his life in prison sentence.

Pellett said he has learned his family has a long, coincidental history with Dryman. Records show that Pellett's great aunt once testified in support of Dryman when the then 16-year-old was accused of robbing a liquor store.

"She came to his defense so that he was not labeled as a delinquent," Pellett said.

Pellett, who only decided to hire a private investigator on a whim during a dinner party conversation, said he is not driven to see Dryman punished.

"The legal system will handle it," the grandson said. "Whatever they decide is fine with me. I mean he is 78 years old."

But Pellet, 56, said would like to finish writing the family history of the long trial.

"I want to see if he wants to talk to me," Pellett said. "I just want to get information. There are holes in the story he could really add to."

http://www.kpho.com/news/22930941/detail.html

[Dakota Valkyrie]

The Montana Board of Pardons and Parole voted unanimously to return 78-year-old Frank Dryman, who had been on the lam for 38 years, to prison on Friday.

Dryman will have an opportunity to seek parole again in five years.

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/art...g-back-to-jail

[Mystica43229]

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - The aging Frank Dryman, a notorious killer from Montana's past, had hidden in plain sight for so long that he forgot he was a wanted man.

In an exclusive jailhouse interview with The Associated Press, Dryman detailed how he invented a whole new life, with a new family, an Arizona wedding chapel business - and even volunteer work for local civic clubs.

"They just forgot about me," said Dryman, in his first interview since being caught and sent back to the prison he last left in the 1960s. "I was a prominent member of the community."

That is, until the grandson of the man he shot six times in the back came looking.

Dryman had been one step ahead of the law since 1951 when he avoided the hangman's noose, a relic of frontier justice still in use at the time.

Less than 20 years later he was out on parole. Not content with that good fortune, he skipped out and evaded authorities for four decades. After a while he even forgot about hiding and signed up for V.A. benefits from his days in the Navy in 1948.

Now the 79-year-old Dryman is back behind bars, likely for what remains of his life.

He was caught only after his long-ago victim's grandson got curious and started poking around.

Dryman was hitching a ride from Shelby cafe owner Clarence Pellett on a cold and snowy day in 1951 when he pulled a gun and ordered Pellett out of his own car and began firing.

Dryman does not deny the crime - just that he's not the same man today. He has been Victor Houston for decades. At the time of the murder, and after being discharged from the Navy for mental issues, he was going by yet another name: Frank Valentine.

"That kid, Frank Valentine, he just exploded," Dryman says of his crime. "I didn't shoot that man in the back. That wild kid did. That's not me.

"Victor Houston tried to make up for it by being an honor citizen."

Dryman says he served his time, which he did until paroled. But a Montana Parole Board not accustomed to leniency on those who walk away from supervision was not impressed with Dryman's subsequent good deeds. Last month the board sent him back behind bars to serve what remains of his life sentence.

Dryman said he disappeared from parole in California to get away from a wife he didn't like. He said he's not sure why he just didn't leave the wife and remain on parole.

But once gone, he said, he didn't look back. His new wife and family knew nothing of his past. He put down roots in Arizona City painting signs, a trade learned in prison, and performing weddings.

"I never thought I was a parole violator. I was Victor Houston. I never looked over my shoulder," Dryman said. "I just forgot about it."

On his birthday he used to get two cards from his brother: one for Houston and one for Valentine.

"I thought it was cute. I had no fear," Dryman said.

He said the details of his past are just coming back: the shooting, his original sentence and the cause he became for opponents of the death penalty, and his first stint in prison.

Read more of the story here:

http://www.komonews.com/news/local/96377004.html