Peanut Butter Bandit Back in Prison

By Chris Dehnel

A man who has committed several violent sexual assaults, kidnapping, assaults on police officers and burglaries in Tolland, South Windsor and Enfield has been returned to prison.

Frederick Merrill, who had become known as the Peanut Butter Bandit, was returned to prison at Hartford Correctional Center Monday, a Department of Corrections official said Friday.
Merrill had been on parole and living at his sister's home at 528 Merrow Road, Tolland.

A Department of Corrections official said he was returned to prison for "numerous technical violations" of his parole conditions. She did not elaborate.

Merrill, 66, is a man with a violent criminal history and has escaped from prison on several occasions. He was released from the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institute in Suffield on Oct. 5, 2012 and was residing at The Eddy Center in Middletown, a residential treatment facility, before moving to the Tolland home.
From 1967 to 1987, Merrill escaped from Connecticut and Canadian prisons, only to be captured again and charged with additional offenses according to the DOC and the Hartford Courant.

In one infamous incident, Merrill escaped prison after his mother smuggled a handgun into the jail in a jar of peanut butter, according to the Hartford Courant, thus earning him the nickname the "Peanut Butter Bandit."

Since his re-imprisonment in 2003, when he was sentenced to 20-years for crimes related to a first-degree sexual assault in South Windsor and two burglaries in Enfield in 1987, Merrill has not escaped from the MacDougall-Walker Correctional, where he was being held.

While living in Tolland, Merrill was monitored by a specialized unit of the parole division that is specifically trained to manage sexual offenders, officials said.

Merrill was required to check-in with his parole officers once a week, register as a sexual offender and was under GPS surveillance 24/7, officials said at the time of the move.

Merrill was also subject to additional requirements, such as:

Electronic monitoring
No contact with victims or family members of victims
No consumption of alcoholic beverages, random toxicology screenings
Behavioral management for the treatment of problem sexual behavior
Officials said in July that it would also be unlikely for Merrill to be allowed to live at a residence with young women or children.