After 32 years on lam, prison escapee nabbed

[Greg]

After 32 years on lam, prison escapee nabbed | The Pueblo (CO) Chieftain

By TRACY HARMON
THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

CANON CITY - An escaped Colorado inmate on the lam for 32 years was apprehended Monday in Nevada 389 months after he fled from Fremont Correctional Facility in the spring of 1975.



Robert Charles Johnson, 56, was arrested by deputy U.S. marshals in Gardnerville, Nev., a small town about 60 miles south of Reno, according to Chief Deputy Ken Deal of the marshals' Denver office.

Johnson reportedly escaped from the medium-security Fremont prison in Canon City on April 22, 1975, when he was 24. He was serving a 10- to 15-year sentence out of El Paso County for second-degree murder.

Johnson had served two years when he escaped. Had he continued to serve his time in prison he would have finished his sentence in 1989 at the age of 38.

In 2001, the Colorado Department of Corrections requested assistance locating Johnson from federal marshals and the Fugitive Location and Apprehension Group Task Force.

Johnson’s 32 years on the run ended at about 8 p.m. Monday when a team of deputy U.S. marshals from the District of Nevada arrested Johnson at his home in Gardnerville, where he had been living under an assumed identity with a female.

Marshals were acting on a lead sent by deputies assigned to the fugitive task force in Denver. The fugitive task force is a team of law enforcement officers from the U.S. Marshals service, Denver and Aurora police, the Colorado Department of Corrections, and the Arapahoe, Jefferson and Douglas County sheriff’s offices.

Johnson is being held in the Douglas County Jail in Nevada pending extradition.



Inmate who fled Colo. in '76 nabbed in Nevada | Rocky Mountain News


By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
September 26, 2007

Escaped murderer Robert Charles Johnson's 32-year run is over.

It ended Monday night in Gardnerville, Nev., when U.S. marshals and sheriff's deputies burst into a bedroom and found the 57-year-old fugitive from Colorado Springs asleep in his bed.

"He knew how to live beneath the radar," U.S. Marshal George Schroeder said. "He was very slick about that."

His beard is gray now.

Gone is the full head of blond hair that Johnson had when Colorado Corrections officials took his mug shot in 1973, when he was serving a 10- to 15-year prison sentence for second-degree murder in the shooting death of Michael A. Lucas.

Johnson escaped from the Fremont Correctional Facility on April 22, 1975. He began living under the assumed identity of"Robert Fargo," authorities said. In his new life, he worked as a white-water river rafting guide.

He was working for rafting companies in 1990 when a misstep gave investigators their first clue to his whereabouts. Police in Angel's Camp, Calif., arrested Johnson that year on a misdemeanor disturbance charge.

In a routine procedure, police forwarded his fingerprints to the FBI for analysis. A month later, the prints matched a set taken from Johnson's 1973 arrest file. But by then, "Robert Fargo" had vanished.

The search for Johnson went cold until 2005, when the Colorado Department of Corrections asked the U.S. Marshal's task force to help find the fugitive.

This time, the task force was able to find a new lead: Johnson had been working as a roofer in California. Schroeder said that Johnson's former employer was able to turn over identification cards that again listed him as "Robert Neal Fargo."

The employer, whose name authorities withheld, told investigators that "Fargo" had been let go from the company after he failed a drug test.

On Friday, marshals learned that Johnson was living in Gardnerville, in a home he shared with a girlfriend for the last three years.

with his girlfriend. She answered the door when investigators came knocking Friday night and stormed the bedroom.

Johnson offered no resistance, Schroeder said.

"He kept saying, 'I'm Robert Fargo. I'm Robert Fargo,'" said Schroeder, who then laid out the evidence in front of Johnson. "His head went down. He said, 'At least I'll have 10 to 15 years to prove I'm Robert Fargo.'"

Schroeder said the girlfriend, whose name authorities withheld, also seemed like she was in shock when he informed her that she had been living with a convicted murderer.

"You could hear the shaking in her voice," he said. "She had felt like she had been betrayed."

Investigators booked Johnson into the Douglas County, Nev., jail, where he currently is awaiting extradition.

Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

[Xochitl]

Wow! his girlfriend didn't know?! That's really wild, imagine?