‘Most wanted’ fugitive recaptured in Georgia after using dead child’s name

An Oregon man who used the identity of a dead child to evade authorities was arrested earlier this week after more than 20 years on the run.

A U.S. Marshals Service regional task force arrested Steven Craig Johnson, 70, at an apartment complex in Macon, Georgia, more than 2,500 miles east of Salem, Oregon, where he was serving a prison sentence for multiple sex crimes.

Johnson had been in the area since 2011 and lived and worked under the alias William Cox, the identity of a Texas child who died in January 1962, a press release said.

He managed to obtain a copy of the dead child’s birth certificate and eventually a social security number.

Marshals Service officials searched for Johnson for nearly a decade, but said they were able to locate and arrest him last year thanks to the development of “new investigative technologies.”

Oregon refugee awaits extradition; originally fled from work crew

Johnson is expected to return to the place from which he fled in November 1994.

He left a work group at Mill Creek Correctional Facility, where he was serving a sentence for sexual abuse and sodomy, according to a news release from the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Johnson was described as a “pedophile” who “has a high likelihood of victimizing prepubescent boys,” according to a 2019 statement from the Oregon Department of Corrections. Johnson was “wanted” on a 30-year-old state arrest warrant issued after his escape from the now-closed minimum-security facility.