Les Misérables of a sort?

THIS is a strange one. In 1962, nearly half a century ago, 19-year-old George Wright apparently shot and killed the owner of a New Jersey gas station during an armed robbery. After his arrest, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. Eight years later, he escaped and subsequently joined the Black Liberation Army, a militant nationalist-Marxist group. Between plots to implement regime change, Wright, a handsome man, worked part-time as a model. But somewhere along the way, he tired of fighting "the racial onslaught of the pig who wishes to brutalize our black leaders, rape our women, and destroy our black communities," as the Black Panther militant in Forrest Gump put it by rote, perfectly capturing the racial paranoia of those times.

In 1972, Wright (dressed as a priest and packing heat in a hollowed-out Bible) and two BLA associates hijacked Delta Air Lines Flight 841. They demanded and received $1 million dollars, and ultimately escaped to Algiers. No one was hurt in the hijacking (the passengers reportedly said they were "polite"). From there, Wright essentially disappeared into the ether -- without the money; it was confiscated by the Algerians and returned to the US. There's little doubt in my mind that Wright was one bad motherfucker, a deluded radical who had gotten away and beaten justice. In time, he was forgotten -- and the world moved on.

Fast forward 39 years. On a cobbled street in the scenic seaside hamlet of Almocageme, Portugal, sits a "small whitewashed house with terracotta roof tiles, a yellow door and a small front garden." It is the home of one Jorge Santos and his wife, Maria do Rosario Valente, 55, the daughter of a retired Portuguese army officer. Neighbors said the couple, who raised two children (now in their 20s), lived quietly in the village for over 20 years. Santos, it seems, had bought a "pennyworth of paradise," as novelist Victor Hugo might describe it. The locals knew Santos as "a friendly man they thought was from Africa, who spoke good Portuguese and did odd jobs. Over the years, he worked as a nightclub bouncer, a beach stall salesman and ran a barbecue chicken restaurant," according to the AP. Years earlier, Santos had even worked translation projects for the U.S. Embassy in Guinea-Bissau. John Blacken, then the U.S. ambassador, recalled him as a swell guy, "an ordinary person."

Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos is of course George Wright. At some point in the 90s, Wright allowed himself to be fingerprinted for his national ID card. Luck and online database forensics conducted by a federal Fugitive Task Force ultimately led to Wright's surprise arrest as he walked to a local cafe. "Can you imagine?" a U.S. Marshals Service spokesman told the LA Times. He could picture the scene: Game over, buddy. You lose.

Wright, now 68, is being detained without bail in Lisbon pending extradition. Good. Case closed. Justice will finally be served. The family of the murder victim will get the closure it rightfully deserves. The long arm of the law is not fiction, and Wright's case is a classic reminder to all would-be criminals: You can run but you can't hide. Or as Hugo would put it, "Liberation is not deliverance. A convict may leave prison behind but not his sentence." Those are all the proper reactions to the epilogue of this saga, a story seemingly ripped from the pages of an Elmore Leonard crime novel. The news of this successful manhunt may even call for a toast over champagne.

But why do I feel a bit, well, queasy? It's not like I want this feeling. As I said, Wright was one bad motherfucker. He is easy to despise for good reasons. He put himself into this box, and now he's about to pay the price. Still, it's hard to deny that this decades-long manhunt has a whiff of Les Misérables to it. After chipping away the hard-packed ice encasing this cold case, the tenaciousness of the federal G-Men would impress even Inspector Javert. To be sure, Wright is no Jean Valjean, a fictional character guilty only of stealing bread for his starving family. Wright is all too real, a convicted killer who largely avoided paying for his multiple crimes.

But that said, should we reject out of hand any thought of redemption, as uncomfortable as this might be in this case? Is it possible that Wright -- a convict on the lam for over four decades -- has rehabilitated himself? These questions are not easy to contemplate given his principal crime (murder). After all, his cruelty left two little girls fatherless. In the name of justice, we will re-imprison Wright to serve out his time. And the law, as Inspector Javert correctly observed, doesn't allow us be merciful. In 1962, Wright was sentenced to 15 to 30 years for murder (of which he served 8 years). To this must be added charges for escaping prison, hijacking, kidnapping and extortion. It adds up to the death penalty in slow motion since Wright, 68, will never live long enough to repay his overdue debt to society. But is the old man we're about to lock up (forever) the same man who committed these crimes? I don't know.

Yet I am uneasy with the thought that Wright may be a changed man. What we know of the circumstantial evidence seems to suggest it. And if he is rehabilitated, then what does justice mean in his case? Does the presumed punishment still fit the crime? Has reform really become "a discarded fantasy," as Javert coldly observed? Are we so consumed with vengeance and self-righteousness that notions of redemption and, yes, forgiveness, are utter impossibilities? Yes, Wright is guilty. But are we truly incapable of pondering Hugo's truism that "if the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness?" I possess no answers for any of this. Maybe there aren't any.

I leave you with this memorable scene from The Shawshank Redemption. Morgan Freeman, who plays a convicted killer named "Red" serving a life sentence, is before an annual parole board:

Parole officer: "Ellis Boyd Redding, your files say you've served 40 years of a life sentence. Do you feel you've been rehabilitated?"
Red: "Rehabilitated? Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means."
Parole officer: "Well, it means that you're ready to rejoin society ..."
Red: [cutting him off] "I know what *you* think it means, sonny. To me it's just a made up word. A politician's word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?"
Parole officer: "Well, are you?"
Red: "There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone and this old man is all that's left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It's just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don't give a shit."

Red is given his freedom by the parole board.