THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 29, 1996 TAG: 9602290274
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MANASSAS LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Geoffrey A. Ward called an old friend last week and asked a startling question. ``Guess where I am?'' the convicted double murderer said.
Ward, a convicted Norfolk murderer, was not where he belonged - behind bars and the razor-wire fences of Powhatan Correctional Center near Richmond.
``I'm out,'' Ward told the woman on the other end of the collect call. And he held up the receiver of a pay telephone so Robin Wolfe could hear the sound of trucks rolling by.
``I shook. I just shook when I figured it out,'' Wolfe told The Associated Press Monday.
Then Ward asked another question. Would she help him avoid the massive manhunt he knew was closing in on him?
``I fell on my knees and prayed,'' Wolfe said.
Wolfe borrowed money to drive from her home in Iowa to Virginia, she said. She packed a bag with medical supplies for the wounds Ward suffered in the escape. And she called a friend for advice - a friend who told her to look at her sleeping children before deciding whether to take such an enormous risk.
Then she called police.
Based on the information she provided, prison authorities found Ward hiding in woods more than 15 miles from the prison, more than 30 hours after he disappeared into the dark, foggy countryside. He was waiting for his friend.
Wolfe, who said she was once romantically infatuated with Ward, said she feared he would be killed by police. ``I think he knows that I love him with an unconditional kind of love and that I did what was best to keep him safe, keep me out of jail and keep my family together,'' Wolfe said.
She made authorities promise they wouldn't hurt Ward, and that she could see him after his capture, she said. She traveled to a friend's home in Manassas over the weekend, and made a trip Sunday to the rural prison.
``This was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It was head over heart, because in my heart I wanted him to get out of there - to start a new life,'' Wolfe said.
A state official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed Wolfe's story. But neither prison authorities nor state police would comment.
On Tuesday, spokesman Bill Cimino said he could not confirm or deny Wolfe's story, saying the agency does not want to jeopardize its confidential sources.
Ward is serving eight life terms plus 140 years for crimes that included two murders in Norfolk in 1984. He abducted, raped and strangled a 14-year-old Norfolk girl and a 38-year-old Norfolk woman in separate assaults.
Ward returned to his native Massachusetts, but came back to Norfolk two years later and confessed to the crimes. by CNB