October 18, 1944 - Barry Prudom
Prudom's case stands apart less for its body count than for the particular skills that made him so difficult to apprehend — survival training absorbed from the same military tradition that would ultimately be used to find him. His eighteen-day evasion across the north of England consumed enormous police resources and gripped the country, producing what was then the largest manhunt in British history. The grim irony that his tracker, Eddie McGee, had indirectly trained him through published survival techniques gave the pursuit an almost structured quality that distinguished it from ordinary fugitive cases.
From Wikipedia
Barry Peter Prudom (born Barry Edwards; 18 October 1944 – 4 July 1982), dubbed the Phantom of the Forest, was an English electrician and multiple murderer who became the subject of what was, at the time, the largest manhunt in British history. Prudom became a fugitive after killing PC David Haigh on 17 June 1982. He proceeded to kill twice more, shooting civilian George Luckett on 23 June and Sergeant David Winter on 28 June.
Described as an "avid outdoorsman and firearms enthusiast", Prudom's knowledge of military survival skills learned while training with the Special Air Service (SAS) helped him evade capture for eighteen days as he hid out in rural areas in the north of England. When eventually found, having been tracked by "Jungle" Eddie McGee, a former SAS instructor, he died by suicide by firing a single shot to his head. It later transpired that Prudom had previously attended survival courses run by McGee and had made extensive study of a manual on survival techniques written by the SAS veteran, entitled No Need To Die.
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