Real Name: Daniel Michael Weeks
Aliases: Danny Weeks
Wanted For: Murder, Abduction, Escape
Missing Since: August 1986
Case[]
Details: On December 26, 1981, forty-year-old Army Sgt. Hubert Ester was murdered in his home in Monroe, Louisiana. Authorities discovered that his wife Patricia had become romantically involved with twenty-seven-year-old Danny Weeks. It was later determined that Patricia had hired Weeks to kill Hubert. Weeks pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison; Patricia was found guilty of first-degree murder and was also sentenced to life in prison.
On August 24, 1986, Weeks and another inmate, James Colvin, escaped from the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Baton Rouge. They evaded capture by swimming across the Mississippi River. The next day, they kidnapped a woman at knifepoint in Alexandria and forced her to drive to Houston, Texas, where they released her unharmed. Later that day, they forced another woman at gunpoint to drive her car from Houston to El Paso, where they released her unharmed as well. Colvin was arrested later in 1986 in Los Angeles. However, Weeks remained at large and was placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.
Extra Notes: This case originally aired on the January 20, 1987 Special #1 episode of Unsolved Mysteries hosted by Raymond Burr in an FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List along with Leo Koury, Donald Eugene Webb, Victor Gerena, Claude Dallas, James Dyess, Thomas Harrelson, and Robert Litchfield. It was excluded from the FilmRise release of Robert Stack episodes. Weeks was also profiled on America's Most Wanted.
Results: Captured. On March 20, 1988, Weeks and Jorene Florea were arrested by FBI agents in Seattle, Washington, after receiving an anonymous tip about their whereabouts. Two weeks earlier, Weeks and Florea had kidnapped a woman from a shopping center in Greensboro, North Carolina, and forced her to drive for several days before releasing her in Chicago, Illinois. Weeks was returned to the Louisiana State Penitentiary and was later convicted on two counts of kidnapping. He received two consecutive life sentences and remains in prison.
Links:
- Danny Weeks on the FBI Website
- STATE v. ESTER - March 8, 1985
- Women Abducted in Escape Of 2 From Louisiana Prison - August 25, 1986
- Police searched Sunday night for two Louisiana prison escapees... - August 25, 1986
- Escaped Prisoners Kidnap Two Women - August 25, 1986
- Texas Issues Statewide Alert For Two Louisiana Fugitives - August 26, 1986
- A convicted murderer put on the FBI's 'Most Wanted'... - March 21, 1988
- Fay Observer Archive
- '10 Most-Wanted' Fugitive Captured - March 21, 1988
- United States of America v. Danny Michael Weeks - November 29, 1990