'Pedophile' who escaped from Oregon prison 30 years ago captured in Georgia

A man described as one of the State of Oregon's "most wanted fugitives" has been captured in Georgia 30 years after escaping from a correctional facility in Salem as part of a prisoner work crew.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A man described as one of Oregon's "most wanted fugitives" has been captured in Georgia 30 years after escaping from a correctional facility in Salem as part of a prisoner work crew.

The 70-year-old Steven Craig Johnson was arrested in Macon, Georgia by the U.S. Marshals Service, Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force on Tuesday, the Oregon Department of Corrections announced. He's being lodged at the Bibb County Jail and awaiting extradition back to Oregon.

Johnson was wanted on an Oregon arrest warrant for escape after he fled from a work crew at the Mill Creek Correctional Facility in Salem on Nov. 29, 1994. He was originally in custody serving out a sentence for three counts of first-degree sex abuse and one count of first-degree attempted sodomy.

According to an Oregon DOC wanted poster, "Johnson is a pedophile and presents a high probability of victimizing pre-teen boys."

Officials said Johnson was taken into custody at around 2 p.m. Tuesday at an apartment complex in Macon where he had resided since 2011 under the alias William Cox. The U.S. Marshals Service said the alias is from Johnson stealing the identity of a child who died in Texas in January 1962. He was able to get a copy of the child's birth certificate and a social security number in Texas in 1995. He then got a Georgia Driver's License in 1998.

The Mill Creek Correctional Facility was a minimum-security prison housing 290 adults who were within four years of release. Originally opened in 1929 as the Farm Annex of the Oregon State Penitentiary, MCCF closed permanently in 2021 by an order from Governor Kate Brown.