Legendary fugitive captured after 32 years
Greg Lawson slipped out a Claiborne Parish Courthouse window thirty-two years ago, escaping deputies waiting to escort him back to Bienville Parish. This week, the Bienville Parish Sheriff’s Office got a call from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation asking them to pick up Lawson in Houston.
The FBI had found him in Huatulco, Mexico.
Greg Lawson and Seth Garlington both grew up in Ringgold, Louisiana.
Lawson had a reputation as a rich kid with a temper. “[The bully] reveled in having some controversy going on all the time,” former friend Ryanie Evans told KSLA’s Fred Childers in 2007. “He thrived on that,” he said.
Evans said Lawson reveled in his family’s influence. Evans said he reported Lawson stealing thousands of dollars worth of firearms. Still, the sheriff’s office refused to take his report.
Stories like these got the attention of the FBI in 2007. Greg Lawson had become an urban legend, seen across North Louisiana, taunting the bureau and challenging local police to find him. The FBI responded by posting a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to his arrest.
“His actions show he doesn’t have much character,” FBI Supervising Agent Mike Kinder said in 2007. “I think he’s fled the area now, and that also shows he’s a coward,” the agent said.
His dad had a good bit of money,” Lucky Raley, Bienville Parish’s Chief Deputy in 1991, told Childers. In retirement, he said he would never forget the day Lawson shot Garlington.
The chief and Evans recalled how Greg Lawson and longtime rival Seth Garlington’s barroom fight over a woman evolved into the biggest shootout Ringgold had ever seen.
Court documents support their recollection, detailing how Lawson followed Garlington from a nightclub and forced his vehicle off the highway. Garlington tackled Lawson in the gas station parking lot, and their fistfight resumed.
“When they couldn’t settle things with their hands,” Ryanie Evans said, “They brought out the guns.”
Greg Lawson shot Seth Garlington twice, but the wounded man survived.
“[We] brought it to a grand jury,” Chief Raley remembered, “We arrested Greg, but due to his family’s influence, they set him for trial and moved [his hearing] to Claiborne Parish — Homer, Louisiana.”
According to Raley, when the jury returned from deliberation, they brought an indictment, attempted murder in the second degree. However, Greg Lawson could not hear the foreman’s report. He had fled the courtroom through a bathroom window.
Police found his truck a block away, launching his three-decade career as a fugitive.
Chief Raley laughed at the 2007 Lawson sightings, telling reporters to write those off as more urban legend than unsolved mystery. “We’ve got information he’s in Mexico,” Raley said, “But I think he’s somewhere in South America,” said Raley.
But Raynie Evans disagreed, telling reporters the trail was not that cold.
“I have a lot of friends that tell me they’ve seen him,” Evans said. “Hell, I may have seen him myself,” he said, describing a fleeting glimpse of Lawson passing his driveway. “[Greg] pulled up in a truck, [a] Chevy with Texas tags. He rolled the window down and spat at me,” Evans said.
Some Ringgold residents believed Lawson got a raw deal, while others waited for justice to call. “I’d sure like to see Greg face justice on this,” Evans said in 2007, “But I’m certain that day will never come.”
For Greg Lawson, that day came on Tuesday, September 19, 2023.
The FBI’s New Orleans bureau received a tip earlier this month that Lawson lived in Mexico and phoned agents in Shreveport. The office there coordinated with FBI Headquarters and Mexican officials, ultimately arresting Lawson Tuesday afternoon in Huatulco, Mexico.
Officially, immigration authorities deported Lawson for immigration violations.
Video obtained by CBS Shreveport affiliate KTBS showed Lawson — escorted by law enforcement — walking off a plane at a Houston airport on Wednesday, where Louisiana authorities handcuffed him.
In a news release, Douglas A. Williams, Jr., the special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans bureau, announced, “We want to thank our partners and the public in this case, who never gave up hope that justice could be served, and Mr. Lawson might be in the wind if our partners in Mexico had not been willing to deal with this so swiftly.”