 Richard David Kimble is a pediatrician living in Stafford, IN, a suburb some 75 miles from Indianapolis. His wife is Helen Waverly-Kimble, a former nurse whom he met while a hospital intern. In 1961 they are to have a baby, but their baby dies upon being born and Helen can physicially no longer bear children. When Richard Kimble wants to adopt a child, Helen objects, and the disagreement stresses their relationship until, on the fateful night of September 19, 1961, Richard storms out of their house after another bitter quarrel. After a drive, he cools off and returns home, but as he arrives he sees a heavyset man running out of his house and nearly strikes him. The man s image burns into Kimble s pysche; heavyset, with short black hair, saddish eyes, mildy cherubish complexion, and his right arm below the elbow is missing. The man (who will eventually be identified as Fred Johnson) runs off, and Kimble rushes into his house - to find Helen lying on the floor, dead. The Stafford PD s investigation uncovers no one-armed man matching Kimble s description, and he is charged with Helen Kimble s murder, convicted, and sentenced to the electric chair. But in March 1963, while being escorted by the investigating officer of Helen s murder, Lieutenant Philip Gerard, the train on which both men are riding derails, and in the crash Kimble becomes seperated from Gerard. Now free, Kimble flees into the night, and his journey begins, as he traverses the country, searching for Fred Johnson, the one-armed vagrant who killed Helen Kimble, and helping others he meets in his travels. All the while he must stay one step ahead of Philip Gerard, who blames himself for Kimble s escape and who is determined to bring the Fugitive to justice, despite doubts within his own mind as to Kimble s guilt.