William Robert Horton, born on August 12, 1951, is often called "Willie Horton." He is an American criminal. In 1974, he was convicted of robbery and murder. In 1986, he escaped from a Massachusetts prison program that allowed him to leave prison temporarily. In 1987, while hiding, he committed kidnapping, armed robbery, and rape in Maryland. During the 1988 U.S. presidential election, Vice President George H. W. Bush, who was running against Michael Dukakis, the governor of Massachusetts, often mentioned Horton. Bush said that Dukakis was responsible for Horton's release during the furlough program.

Early life

William R. Horton was born in August 1951 in South Carolina. As a teenager, he was found guilty of assault and sent to jail. After his release, he later moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and began selling drugs.

1974: Robbery and murder

On October 26, 1974, at about 10 p.m., the body of Joseph "Joey" Fournier was discovered at a gas station in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Fournier was a 17-year-old white teenager who was a senior at Greater Lawrence Vocational School and worked at the gas station. He was last seen alive by a witness between 9:25 p.m. and 9:40 p.m. that evening. Fournier had been stabbed multiple times.

Three African-American men—Horton, Alvin L. Wideman, and Roosevelt Pickett—were later arrested for the robbery and murder of Fournier. Each man said he took part in the robbery, but their accounts of the events differed. All three agreed they were together in Pickett’s 1963 Chevrolet on October 26, 1974, returning from a party in Lowell, Massachusetts, when they decided to rob the gas station.

Horton said he was driving the car and stayed inside it. He claimed Wideman and Pickett entered the gas station with knives and returned with about $210. Horton also said Pickett mentioned destroying evidence related to a "dead honky."

Pickett disagreed with Horton. He said Horton planned the robbery and that Pickett stayed in the car while Wideman and Horton entered the gas station with knives. Pickett claimed Wideman and Horton returned with cash, giving each man about $70–$80.

Wideman’s statements mostly matched Pickett’s, saying he and Horton entered the gas station while Pickett remained in the car. Wideman said he robbed Fournier but claimed Fournier was alive when he left the gas station. He suggested Horton may have stabbed Fournier.

A witness testified that Alvin L. Wideman confessed to killing a man on the night of the crime. The witness said Wideman admitted demanding money from the victim, who gave it up and begged for his life. Wideman reportedly became angry and stabbed the man multiple times.

Other witnesses said they saw a 1963 Chevrolet with three Black men near the gas station shortly before Fournier’s body was found.

Defense witnesses testified that Pickett was with them at another location during the robbery and murder. They also said Pickett’s hairstyle was different from what witnesses described seeing in the Chevrolet before the crime.

In the end, Horton, Wideman, and Pickett were all convicted of armed robbery and first-degree murder. They were sentenced to life in prison without the chance to be released.

1986-1987: absconscion from prison furlough, kidnap and rape

On June 6, 1986, Horton was released from prison as part of a weekend furlough program but did not return. He had previously been released nine times without breaching furlough conditions. Horton fled to Florida, where he worked in construction, and later went to Baltimore, Maryland.

On April 3, 1987, in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Horton attacked a woman. He hit her fiancé with a gun, stabbed him, tied him up, and covered his mouth. He then stole the victim’s car.

Horton was arrested for the events in Oxon Hill. He was found guilty of kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder in the Prince George's County Circuit Court of Maryland. In December 1987, he was sentenced to two life terms plus 85 years. The judge, Vincent J. Femia, refused to send Horton back to Massachusetts. He said, "I'm not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed or otherwise released…This man should never draw a breath of free air again."

As of December 30, 2025, Horton was incarcerated at the Jessup Correctional Facility in Maryland.

Legislative and political background

In 1972, Republican Governor Frank Sargent started the Massachusetts furlough program, which allowed certain prisoners to spend 18 to 48 hours at home. The program aimed to encourage good behavior in prison and help inmates adjust to life outside after their sentences ended. During Michael Dukakis’s second term as governor, these programs and others helped reduce crime by 13.4% between 1982 and 1986.

At first, the program did not include prisoners who had been convicted of first-degree murder. In 1973, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decided that some prisoners serving life sentences for first-degree murder could be allowed to go on furlough. This decision required approval from the prison superintendent and the commissioner, whose approval could not be given to someone else. In 1976, Michael Dukakis refused to sign a bill that would have stopped life-sentence prisoners from being eligible for furlough. He said this would "cut the heart out of efforts at inmate rehabilitation." At that time, 23 other states allowed prisoners convicted of first-degree murder to be eligible for furlough.

In 1987, 77% of the 1,161 prisoners who received a furlough came from pre-release or minimum security facilities. Also, 56% of those furloughed had no previous adult criminal records. That year, the Massachusetts Department of Correction recorded 5 escapes, which was less than one escape for every 100 furloughs, or a rate of 0.1%.

The furlough program continued during the term of Governor Edward J. King. However, it was later stopped for prisoners serving life sentences during Dukakis’s final term. This happened after the program was frozen following an incident in Maryland involving William R. Horton. The program’s end followed strong public pressure and reports by the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, which published 175 stories about the furlough program. These stories won a Pulitzer Prize, but later, the Washington Journalism Review found that the articles contained "outrageous errors" and showed bias against the program without providing facts or statistics. The furlough program was one of many similar programs, but one of the few run by a Democratic presidential candidate. Ronald Reagan had also started a furlough program in California.

Horton in the 1988 presidential campaign

In April 1988, Democratic Senator Al Gore of Tennessee first mentioned the Massachusetts furlough program during a Democratic Primary debate. He referred to a robbery-assault in Maryland without naming William Horton and asked Michael Dukakis, "If you were elected President, would you support a similar program for federal prisons?"

George H.W. Bush’s campaign manager, Lee Atwater, had already studied William Horton with his team before Gore raised the issue. After Dukakis became the Democratic nominee, Republicans focused on the Horton case. Atwater said, "By the time we're done, people will wonder if Willie Horton is Dukakis’s running mate." In 1989, William Horton told an article in Playboy magazine that someone linked to the Bush campaign contacted him to ask for support for Dukakis. In June 1988, George H.W. Bush used the Horton case in many campaign speeches.

A campaign worker named James Pinkerton gathered information Atwater asked him to summarize on a 3-by-5-inch index card. Pinkerton learned about the furlough program by watching a debate at the Felt Forum. On May 25, 1988, Republican consultants met in Paramus, New Jersey, with a group of voters who had supported Ronald Reagan in 1984. These meetings convinced Atwater and others to attack Dukakis using negative tactics. More details about the furlough program came from Andrew Card, a Massachusetts native who later became George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff.

During the Fourth of July weekend in 1988, Atwater attended a motorcyclists’ convention in Luray, Virginia. At a restaurant, he overheard diners discussing the Horton story from a Reader’s Digest article. Later that night, a focus group in Alabama became strongly critical of Dukakis after hearing about Horton’s furlough. Atwater argued that this was a chance to attack Dukakis: "We could really harm Dukakis, and we had to do it."

On September 21, 1988, the "Weekend Passes" ad, created by the Americans for Bush group, began running. The ad used the Horton case to criticize Dukakis. It was made by Larry McCarthy, who had worked for Roger Ailes before. The ad included a mug shot of Horton and was run separately from the Bush campaign, which claimed no involvement. The ad called Horton "Willie," though he preferred the name William.

On October 5, 1988, the day after the "Weekend Passes" ad was removed from TV and the day of the Bentsen–Quayle debate, the Bush campaign ran another ad called "Revolving Door." This ad criticized Dukakis’s furlough program without mentioning Horton or showing his photo. It showed men walking through a prison revolving door.

The ad caused controversy when Vice President Lloyd Bentsen and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson called it racist. Bush and his team denied this. Studies later showed the ad increased racial prejudice and influenced viewers to support harsher criminal laws. Most people during the campaign focused on criminal justice issues, not race. However, near the end of the campaign, Jesse Jackson accused the ad’s creators of using fears about Black people as criminals. From then on, race became a major topic in media coverage. Some candidates denied racism, while others believed it was not a factor. Scholars later noted that the ad’s racial tone was important in how it was remembered.

Journalist Robert MacNeil said voters responded to the ad by saying, "I’ll vote for George Bush because I can’t vote for a man who lets murderers out of jail."

On October 22, Dukakis’s campaign ran an ad about a convicted heroin dealer named Angel Medrano, who raped and killed a pregnant mother after escaping from a halfway house.

In 1990, the Ohio Democratic Party and a group called "Black Elected Democrats of Ohio" accused the National Security Political Action Committee (NSPAC) of working with the Bush campaign to air the ad, which would break campaign finance laws. An investigation found no direct evidence of wrongdoing but noted indirect connections, such as McCarthy’s past work with Ailes. The case was closed without a legal finding.

In 1990, journalist Robin Toner wrote that both Republicans and Democrats agreed the ad was "devastating to Dukakis." Dukakis later said he realized the ad was hurting his campaign two months after it first appeared.

In December 2018, after George H.W. Bush’s death, political commentators revisited the ad. Ann Coulter called it "the greatest campaign commercial in political history," saying it clearly showed the candidates’ opposing views on crime.

Other commentators noted that the ad, along with Bush’s presidency, increased racial tensions. Horton later apologized to Dukakis for "the role I played in him losing the election."