An Oregon fugitive who escaped from a work detail almost 30 years ago was apprehended in Macon, Georgia, on Tuesday, NBC reports. He had been residing there since 2011 according to a news release from the regional U.S. Marshals Service fugitive task force. Steven Craig Johnson, 70, also known as “William Cox,” was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals this week after 30 years of living under a false identity, far from the eyes of Oregon correctional officials.
On November 29, 1994, USMS says Johnson fled from a work detail while serving an Oregon state prison sentence for sexual abuse and sodomy. USMS received the case in 2015 at the request of the Oregon Department of Corrections. Then, earlier this year, new technology developed by the Diplomatic Security Service developed new leads in the case. “Further investigation revealed that Johnson had stolen the identity of a child that died in Texas in January 1962,” the release stated. Johnson obtained a copy of the child’s birth certificate and obtained a social security number in Texas in 1995. He first obtained a Georgia driver’s license in 1998. An Oregon Department of Corrections wanted poster, published in 2019, said Johnson presented a “high probability of victimizing pre-teen boys” and that he should “not be allowed contact with children.”
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