An Oregon fugitive who escaped from a prison work crew 30 years ago has been arrested alive under an alias in Georgia, federal authorities say

Maxine Bernstein / oregonlive.com (TNS)

An Oregon fugitive who escaped from a prison work crew 30 years ago has been arrested in Georgia, where he was found in an apartment complex living under a stolen identity for more than a decade, federal authorities say.

Steven Craig Johnson, now 70, was arrested about 2 p.m. Tuesday in Macon, Georgia, where he was known as “William Cox,” a name he assumed was that of a child who died in Texas in January 1962, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Johnson had obtained a copy of the dead child’s birth certificate and Social Security number, federal authorities said.

Johnson was serving a prison sentence for sexual abuse and sodomy when he escaped on Nov. 29, 1994, from a prison work group at Mill Creek Correctional Facility, about five miles southeast of Salem.

The minimum-security prison was not surrounded by a fence and housed approximately 290 prisoners who were less than four years away from release. The prison closed in late June 2021.

After Johnson escaped, authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. The Oregon Department of Corrections called him a pedophile and said he had “a high probability of preying on preadolescent boys,” according to a wanted poster issued by the department. The poster stated that Johnson should not be allowed to have contact with children.

The U.S. Marshals Service began searching for Johnson in 2015 at the request of the Department of Corrections.

Using undisclosed new investigative technology used this year by the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, agents were able to develop leads that led them to Johnson, the agency said.

He lived in the Clisby Towers apartments on Vineville Avenue in Macon, federal authorities said. He first got his driver’s license in Georgia in 1998, investigators said.

Eddie Rozier, a tenant at Clisby Towers, said the building was intended for seniors and people with disabilities. He said the man who identified himself as Cox lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the building when he moved in five years ago.

“I saw him walk by all the time. Everybody called him ‘Bud,’” Rozier recalled. He said the man named Cox lived on the fifth floor, one floor above him.

All the tenants are talking about the arrest, Rozier said. “We’re all in shock,” he said.

April Walker said the man named Cox was her apartment neighbor. She had no idea he was wanted out of state and was surprised by his arrest.

“He was a very nice man. Everybody loved him,” she said. He took care of himself, she added, noting that he walked and exercised every morning.

The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, the Georgia-based U.S. Marshals and members of the U.S. Department of State assisted in the investigation.

Johnson was booked into the Bibb County Jail, awaiting extradition to Oregon.