One of Oregon’s most wanted fugitives, Steven Craig Johnson, was captured Tuesday in Georgia after being on the run for 30 years, officials said.
Johnson, 70, a convicted child sex abuser who escaped in 1994, was captured “at an apartment complex” in Macon, Georgia, according to a U.S. Marshals Service press release. He was found using the alias William Cox, authorities said. He allegedly stole the identity of a child who died in January 1962 in Texas.
Johnson obtained “a copy of the child’s birth certificate” and additionally obtained “a Social Security number” in 1995, the press release alleged. He then allegedly received a Georgia driver’s license three years later.
He had been living at the apartment where he was captured under that alias since 2011, officials said. (RELATED: FBI Nabs Alleged MS-13 Senior Leader On Most Wanted List In Border City)
Pedophile who stole dead child’s identity spent 3 decades on the lam after walking away from prison work crew: Cops https://t.co/NCIXDLQfdl
— Law & Crime (@lawcrimenews) July 18, 2024
Johnson absconded from the Mill Creek Correctional Facility (MCCF) on Nov. 29, 1994, while in a prison work detail, according to an Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) press release. He was serving a sentence in state prison for sodomy and sexual abuse at the time of his escape, U.S. Marshals said.
“MCCF was a minimum-security prison” near Salem, Oregon, the DOC noted. “The facility was unfenced and housed approximately 290 adults in custody who were within four years of release.”
The facility was later closed on June 30, 2021, under Democratic Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s authority, the press release noted.
“Based on his record, Fugitive Johnson is a pedophile and presents a high probability of victimizing pre-teen boys,” the DOC wrote in a wanted poster issued in 2019. “Fugitive Johnson should not be allowed contact with children.”
The DOC requested the help of the U.S. Marshals in this case back in 2015, according to the federal agency. With the help of “new investigative technology” from the Diplomatic Security Service, they were able to secure “new leads in the case.”
Johnson was being held at the Bibb County Jail in Georgia pending extradition to Oregon, the DOC said.
