“Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s impeccably researched, masterfully written, and critically acclaimed work tells the true story of how one woman risked everything for her freedom from one of America’s most famous founding fathers,” said Lisa Ellis, Managing Partner of Provenance Ventures, Provenance Films’ parent company. Now in its 38th printing, “Never Caught” is a National Book Award finalist and has won the Frederick Douglass Book Prize and Phillis Wheatley Book Award. At just 22-years-old, Ona became the subject of an intense manhunt led by George Washington, who used his political and personal contacts to recapture his property,” per the source. “Yet freedom would not come without its costs. One day in Philadelphia, Judge seized her opportunity and fled for New England. Every six months he sent the slaves back down south just as the clock was about to expire,” the press release explains. Rather than comply, Washington decided to circumvent the law. “Pennsylvania law required enslaved people be set free after six months of residency in the state. When George Washington moved north during his presidency, he brought nine slaves with him from Virginia, one of whom was Judge, a young house slave.

Published in February 2017, “Never Caught” delves into the particular circumstances Judge faced. “Walking Dead” scribe LaToya Morgan has been tapped to write the screenplay. A press release has announced that Provenance Films has optioned Erica Armstrong Dunbar’s book “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge,” with plans to adapt it as a feature film.

The long-untold story of Ona Judge, a young woman who escaped slavery and was hunted by George and Martha Washington, is coming to the big screen.

Dunbar never caught