Fugitive's wife out on bond

By Jamie Jones
Dalton Daily Citizen

May 15, 2009 10:45 pm

— CHATSWORTH — The woman who authorities say helped her husband escape from a Virginia prison, then hid in Eton for some 27 years to evade capture, bonded out of the Murray County jail Friday evening.
Debbie Lynn Boucher, 53, 460 Hooker Road, Lot I, Eton received a $2,500 property bond from Magistrate Judge Dwayne Hooper during a first appearance hearing on Friday morning at the jail. The Murray County Sheriff’s Office charged her with hindering the apprehension of a criminal since she knew her husband, Richard Paul Boucher, 56, was a fugitive. Richard Boucher remains in the Whitfield County Jail awaiting transport to Virginia.
Richard Boucher escaped from a prison in Chesapeake in 1982 while serving a 10-year sentence for robbery, and allegedly struck a guard in the head with an iron during the breakout. He was captured Wednesday after an anonymous tip led authorities to the trailer where he and his wife lived. They were using the aliases of Eric and Debbie Coleman.
Hooper said he granted Debbie Boucher a “normal” bond for the charge.
“She’s been here all this time and I didn’t believe there was any big flight risk,” Hooper said. “She didn’t have any criminal history — anything.”
She is being represented by Steve Blevins, assistant public defender with the Murray County Office of the Conasauga Judicial Circuit. Blevins said she will receive a notice to appear in Superior Court.
On Thursday during a hearing in Whitfield County Magistrate Court, Richard Boucher signed an extradition waiver agreeing to return to Virginia. Swiney expects Virginia authorities to pick him up “within the week.”
“We have notified them he is ready to go whenever they have the opportunity to come get him,” Capt. Rick Swiney of the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office said.
Meanwhile in the county just east of Whitfield, Debbie Boucher was among 14 other prisoners facing a bond hearing. Their charges ranged from simple battery to probation violation to drug possession. She wore the standard orange jail fatigues, orange flip flops and had on a pair of red glasses.
When Hooper asked Debbie Boucher if she understood her rights and the charges against her, she nodded to answer each question. Hooper then asked Debbie Boucher if she was on probation or parole, and she answered, “No, sir.” She told Hooper she had lived in Eton for the past 27 years.
“We’ve lived in different places since we’re been here,” she said.
Debbie Boucher told Hooper she didn’t have any income and the electricity to the trailer she and her husband shared had been cut off. She told Hooper she could probably stay at her 25-year-old daughter’s home. Debbie Boucher also said her mother tried to contact her.
The Bouchers’ daughter, whom authorities have declined to identify, is not believed to have any knowledge of the double life her parents lived.
“We have no evidence to suggest that she knew anything about the escape,” Swiney said. “She was named Coleman when she was born and went by that name her whole life. Of course, she’s married now. I’m sure it’s a total shock.”
Hooper said he talked to the daughter before Debbie Boucher’s bond hearing.
“She was telling me that she had no idea,” Hooper said. “She said this is all new to her. She was actually crying when she was there talking to me. She said that her birth certificate has Coleman. So everything about her whole life has been a lie. She isn’t who she thought she was.”