An Inmate Escaped an Oregon Prison in 1994. He Was Just Found Living Under a Stolen Identity in Georgia.

A man who escaped from a prison work detail in Oregon nearly 30 years ago was found living in Georgia under a stolen identity and recaptured, the U.S. Marshals Service announced.

Steven Craig Johnson was serving a prison sentence at Mill Creek Correctional Facility in Salem, Oregon, for sexual abuse and sodomy when he fled from a work crew on Nov. 29, 1994.

According to the Oregon Department of Corrections, the minimum-security prison was unfenced and housed around 290 adults who were within four years of their scheduled release.

The prison, which opened in 1929, was closed on June 30, 2021.

The U.S. Marshals Service Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force located Johnson, now 70 years old, living under the name "William Cox" in Macon, Georgia.

Johnson was arrested this month at an apartment complex on Vineville Avenue. He had been a resident there under the name William Cox since 2011, according to USMS.

The Marshals Service was put on the case back in 2015, at the request of the Oregon Department of Corrections. USMS said it developed new leads this year thanks to "new investigative technology employed by the Diplomatic Security Service."

Investigators learned Johnson had stolen the identity of a Texas child who died in January 1962.

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After obtaining a copy of the child's birth certificate, he was "eventually" able to obtain a Social Security Number in Texas in 1995. He obtained a Georgia driver's license in 1998.

Johnson was booked into the Bibb County Jail in Georgia and is awaiting extradition back to Oregon.

TMX contributed to this report.