Adopted son of ex-officer flees again
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A troubled runaway teenager. rescued from a rooftop ledge by a policeman and later adopted by the officer, was arrested Saturday in Pennsylvania for running away with his adopted father's pistol and Jeep. New York police spokesman Sgt. Ed Bums said.
A police spokesman in Brookville. Pa., confirmed William Buchanan. 19, was in custody but said he could give no details until the youth was charged and the local chief of police authorised a news release.
William Fox, now retired from the force, reported his son missing Friday to police.
Fox said Buchanan took his service revolver, his 1984 Jeep $150 cash. his checkbook and credit cards, and left a note reading "l love you.don't get. mad. you've tried to help me out I can't live up to all the
expectations.
‘Tm as shocked as anyone else that this happened." Fox said. "He knew I was down and out. he knew I was strapped for money. I‘m on a fixed pension and it's tough going, and this is what he did."
Fox has a bad back and retired on disability last you from the police departments emergency services branch.
Fox, 38, adopted Buchnanan In November 1981, just as he promised to on a roottop ledge three months earlier as a crowd below yelled "jump, jump!" at the youth, who appeared ready tn commit suicide.
Buchanan told Fox before climbing to safety that he'd been abandoned by his mother, abused by his father and spent his life in a series of foster homes.
Before meeting Fox. Buchanan had run away from foster homes in North Carolina and Tennessee.
Soon after his adoption. Buchanan was contacted by his mother, Gloria Hunsinger, who had read about him in a newspaper and invited him to visit her in Texas He moved in with her but returned four
months later to Fox. saying, "I wanted to come back to live with Bill. I realized that I blew it when I left him"
But Buchanan's turmoil continued. A year ago this week he was sent to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric observation alter threatening to blow himself up with a bogus bomb.