A fugitive was arrested this week in central Georgia after being on the run for nearly 30 years, authorities said. The man escaped from an Oregon prison in 1994 and subsequently stole the identity of a child who had died in Texas decades earlier, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

Steven Craig Johnson was taken into custody Tuesday by members of a regional task force in Macon, Georgia, who found him at around 2 p.m. at an apartment complex in the city, the Marshals Service said in a news release. Now 70, Johnson had been living under the alias William Cox since 2011.

He fled from a prison work crew in Oregon on Nov. 29, 1994, while serving a state sentence for sexual abuse and sodomy. His convictions more specifically included three counts of first-degree sex abuse and one count of first-degree attempted sodomy, CBS affiliate KOIN-TV reported.

Johnson had been serving his sentence at the Mill Creek Correctional Facility in Salem, about halfway between Portland and Eugene, the Oregon Department of Corrections said. The Mill Creek facility was a minimum security prison located just a few miles outside of the city of Salem, on an unfenced property covering around 2,000 acres, according to the department. Before it closed in 2021, the facility housed roughly 290 inmates who were within four years of release.

Johnson was wanted on an arrest warrant for escape in Oregon, where he has been listed for years among six of the state’s most wanted people. A wanted poster for Johnson issued by the Oregon Department of Corrections noted Texas as one potential location where he had fled, although authorities did not give more details as to his connection to Texas, if any. The poster said Johnson is “a pedophile and presents a high probability of victimizing pre-teen boys.” It cautioned that he “should not be allowed contact with children.”

The Marshals Service said that it took on Johnson’s fugitive case in 2015 at the request of the Oregon Department of Corrections. After spending nine years trying to find him, the agency said that “new investigative technology employed by the Diplomatic Security Service” finally helped develop meaningful leads in 2024.

In addition to adopting a fake name, the investigation also revealed that Johnson had stolen the identity of a child after escaping prison. The child died in Texas in January 1962, the Marshals Service said. Johnson obtained a copy of the child’s birth certificate and, soon after, obtained a Social Security number in Texas in 1995. The earliest record of Johnson with a Georgia driver’s license came in 1998.

Following his arrest in Georgia, Johnson was booked into the Bibb County Jail in Macon. He is awaiting extradition back to Oregon.

CNN
 — 

A man who escaped from an Oregon state prison nearly 30 years ago and stole the identity of a deceased child was captured in Georgia on Tuesday, according to authorities.

Steven Craig Johnson, who had been convicted of sexual abuse charges, escaped from a prison work detail at the Mill Creek Correctional Facility in Salem, Oregon, on November 29, 1994, according to officials. He had been in Oregon Department of Corrections custody since June 1989.

Johnson, now 70, was arrested Tuesday afternoon at an apartment complex in Macon, Georgia, by the US Marshals Service and one of its fugitive task forces, according to the service.

He had been living at the apartment complex under the name of William Cox since 2011, the service said in a release.

An investigation revealed that Johnson had stolen the identity of a child who died in Texas in January 1962, according to the release. Johnson obtained a copy of the child’s birth certificate and was eventually able to get a Social Security number in Texas in 1995, according to officials. Johnson obtained a Georgia driver’s license three years later.

In 2015, the Marshals Service adopted the case at the request of the Oregon Department of Corrections, according to the release. The discovery of the stolen identity came after new investigative technology employed by the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service developed new leads in the case this year, the Marshals Service said without elaborating about the technology.

Johnson was booked into Georgia’s Bibb County jail and is awaiting extradition back to Oregon, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections. It is unknown if he has an attorney.

Johnson was one of Oregon’s most wanted fugitives, according to the corrections department’s website. He “is a pedophile and presents a high probability of victimizing pre-teen boys,” a 2019 wanted poster from the corrections department warned. “Fugitive Johnson should not be allowed contact with children.”

Mill Creek Correctional Facility closed in 2021 by order of then-Gov. Kate Brown as part of her sentencing reform efforts, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections. It originally opened in 1929 as the Farm Annex of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Until 1998, inmates processed milk from a farmers’ cooperative for use by other state institutions, according to the Oregon Historical Society.

“MCCF was a minimum-security prison located five miles southeast of Salem on 2,089 acres. The facility was unfenced and housed approximately 290 adults in custody who were within four years of release,” the department said.

Brown’s decision to close three Oregon prisons, including Mill Creek, was made to save the state more than $44 million, according to The Associated Press. Brown said she wanted to reduce reliance on incarceration and invest more into preventing people from entering the criminal justice system.

FILE – Naomi Pomeroy’s Beast restaurant is shown on Sept. 27, 2013, in Portland, Ore. Naomi Pomeroy, an award-winning chef who helped put Portland, Ore., on the map as a culinary destination, has drowned in an inner tubing accident in the Willamette River, authorities said. She was 49 years old. Pomeroy drowned Saturday, July 13, 2024, near Corvallis after the group she was tubing with got caught on an exposed snag in the water, the Benton County Sheriff’s Office said. (AP Photo/Don Ryan, File)