How Benson Spent More than Two Weeks on the Run
12.06.07 (9:58 pm) [edit]
Published Date: 05-03-2006 06:38 PM CT
Tonight, the level 3 sex offender who escaped St. Peter's Treatment Center and hid from police for over 2 weeks is back behind bars. Now, the questions of where, when, how, and what Michael Benson has been doing for the last two weeks are being answered.
Dorothea, last night, Nicollet chief deputy Karl Jensen was in Kansas City to interview Benson about his escape. And you'll never be lieve the places the level three sex offender went.
For an escaped convict, Benson certainly didn't try very hard to hide when he was in Kansas city. Benson tells Chief Deputy Jensen he just couldn't resist going to a very public place during his stay in Kansas City... a place where thousands of people saw him, not to mention dozens of police and security officers. Michael Dale Benson was here at Kauffman stadium last week. At a very crowded, nationally televised baseball game. Benson says after being in a treatment center for so long, he just couldn't miss the opportunity to go to one of his beloved Twins games. In a heated conversation last night, Benson told police man y details of his stay in Kansas City. The Nicollet County Chief Deputy says Benson was angr y at some points in the interview, jovial at other. The most astonishing, police say... is when Benson said that he expected to be caught that week. "He told us he anticipated he may be captured this week just because he spent so long in Kansas city." Benson says he had no particular plans to head to Kansas City. Just to drive south, because he thought authorities would assume he was going north, to the Canadian border. Police say Benson claims he had no idea he was on national television, featured on the show America's Most Wanted. Jenson says while he takes in what Benson tells him with a grain of salt, he is sure Benson was clear on one thing: that he will not cooperate with the sheriff's office to return to Minnesota. Jenson says Benson doesn't want to come back, claiming he thinks law enforcement have quote "Bigger fish to fry" than go looking for an escaped level 3 sex offender. But the Nicollet Sherrif's department says the FBI caught a huge fish named Benson. They say Benson's biggest mistake.... when he continued driving this 1997 crown Victoria with the Minnesota license plates. Emily Carlson, News 12.
To watch the story on the KEYC website, click here.