Man who escaped Oregon jail 30 years in the past was present in Georgia with a stolen identification, authorities say

A person who escaped from an Oregon state jail almost 30 years in the past and stole the identification of a deceased youngster was captured in Georgia on Tuesday, in keeping with authorities.

Steven Craig Johnson, who had been convicted of sexual abuse costs, escaped from a jail work element on the Mill Creek Correctional Facility in Salem, Oregon, on November 29, 1994, in keeping with officials. He had been in Oregon Division of Corrections custody since June 1989.

Johnson, now 70, was arrested Tuesday afternoon at an house advanced in Macon, Georgia, by the US Marshals Service and certainly one of its fugitive job forces, in keeping with the service.

He had been dwelling on the house advanced underneath the identify of William Cox since 2011, the service mentioned in a launch.

An investigation revealed that Johnson had stolen the identification of a kid who died in Texas in January 1962, in keeping with the discharge. Johnson obtained a replica of the kid’s beginning certificates and was finally capable of get a Social Safety quantity in Texas in 1995, in keeping with officers. Johnson obtained a Georgia driver’s license three years later.

In 2015, the Marshals Service adopted the case on the request of the Oregon Division of Corrections, in keeping with the discharge. The invention of the stolen identification got here after new investigative know-how employed by the US State Division’s Diplomatic Safety Service developed new leads within the case this 12 months, the Marshals Service mentioned with out elaborating in regards to the know-how.

Johnson was booked into Georgia’s Bibb County jail and is awaiting extradition again to Oregon, in keeping with the Oregon Division of Corrections. It’s unknown if he has an legal professional.

Johnson was certainly one of Oregon’s most needed fugitives, in keeping with the corrections department’s website. He “is a pedophile and presents a excessive likelihood of victimizing pre-teen boys,” a 2019 wanted poster from the corrections division warned. “Fugitive Johnson shouldn’t be allowed contact with kids.”

Mill Creek Correctional Facility closed in 2021 by order of then-Gov. Kate Brown as a part of her sentencing reform efforts, in keeping with the Oregon Division of Corrections. It initially opened in 1929 because the Farm Annex of the Oregon State Penitentiary. Till 1998, inmates processed milk from a farmers’ cooperative to be used by different state establishments, in keeping with the Oregon Historical Society.

“MCCF was a minimum-security jail situated 5 miles southeast of Salem on 2,089 acres. The ability was unfenced and housed roughly 290 adults in custody who had been inside 4 years of launch,” the division mentioned.

Brown’s choice to shut three Oregon prisons, together with Mill Creek, was made to save lots of the state greater than $44 million, in keeping with The Associated Press. Brown mentioned she needed to scale back reliance on incarceration and make investments extra into stopping folks from getting into the prison justice system.

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