"We want the rest of the world to know what she’s about and to make sure they do not receive her as anything but a murderer," said Sgt. Stephen Jones, state police spokesman.

Chesimard was convicted in the May 2, 1973, murder of Trooper Werner Foerster, who had been on the job only two years and 10 months.

The slaughter on the New Jersey Turnpike occurred after trooper James Harper stopped a car holding Chesimard and two others from the Black Liberation Army, Clark Squire and James Coston.

Backing Harper up was Foerster, who also had no idea armed political radicals were in the car.

Chesimard, sitting in the right front passenger seat, opened fire first and the others followed, said state police detective Kevin Torme, lead investigator in the Chesimard’s case.

After a hail of bullets, Foerster, 34, and Coston were mortally wounded.

"One of the them executed Trooper Foerster with his own service revolver -- by shooting him twice in the head. On the pavement by Trooper Foerster’s hip was Chesimard’s gun that was jammed," Torme said.

Chesimard and Squire werecaptured, tried, convicted of Foerster’s murder and sentenced to life in state prison.

Chesimard, who now calls herself Assata Shakur and is a professor in Havana under the protection of Castro, was sent to the Clinton Correctional Facility in Hunterdon County.

"She escaped in a well-orchestrated prison break on Nov. 2, 1979," Jones said.

The escapee fled to Cuba where she is being given political asylum.

On Tuesday, Castro appeared to call Chesimard, now 57, a victim of "the fierce repression against the Black movement in the United States and has been a true political prisoner."

A $1 million reward remains for Chesimard’s safe capture. She’s also on the national domestic terrorist list and is currently No. 1 on the state’s most wanted list.

She’s definitely not the persecuted person Castro makes her out to be but rather a convicted criminal, police said.

Torme said he will continue to pursue Chesimard until she is back behind bars.

"She’s a propaganda machine for herself and the Cuban government has only received one side of the story," Torme said.

The people in the car that day "declared war on the troopers and the officers didn’t know it. This was a crime where a trooper was killed in the line of duty by a domestic terrorist who wanted to overthrow the U.S. government."