Fugitive of 36 years found living in Tomball, Texas

[Johnny]

Convicted burglar Donald Johnson slipped away from a California correctional facility in 1967 and spent the next 36 years on the run. For at least two decades, Johnson, 60, had been living a quiet life in Tomball and was considered a model employee at the chemical plant.

His fugitive past caught up with him Jan. 9 when police, working on a tip from California investigators, showed up at the plant with Johnson's prison mug shot.

"It's remarkable how much he still looks like himself -- just add a few more wrinkles and some glasses," said Tomball police detective Ron McGullion.

Johnson adamantly denied that he was the frowning convict in the grainy black-and-white photograph and insisted the detectives had the wrong man. His boss at Pilot Chemical Company, however, was struck by the resemblance.

"When I showed the photo to his manager, he looked at it and said, 'That's him,'" McGullion said.

Johnson has been married for 28 years and detectives said his wife also was shocked by the arrest.

"She didn't know anything about his past," McGullion said. "Unfortunately, she's in very poor health."

Johnson apparently didn't bother to create a new identity for himself while on the run. Detectives said he gave his real name and Social Security number when he recently purchased a travel trailer.

"I'm quite sure that's how they (the California prison investigators) found out who he was," McGullion said.

Johnson was in the Harris County Jail without bail Thursday and is awaiting extradition back to California. Officials there said he will be returned to the Sierra Conservation Center, about 65 miles southeast of Sacramento, where he will serve out the remainder of his original prison term and now also faces felony fugitive charges.

Johnson was only about six months into a one- to 15-year sentence for burglary on July 7, 1967, when he walked away from his warehouse job at the facility where inmates are trained to fight the devastating wildfires that regularly plague the state, officials said.

The low-to-medium security inmates sent there were housed in dormitories and weren't surrounded by the imposing walls of concrete and barbed wire that can be found at other prisons.

"We're not talking about hard time here," said California Department of Corrections spokeswoman Margot Bach. "You're out in the middle of a forest. It's in the Sierra Nevada foothills."

California officials are still trying to determine how Johnson was able to make his escape and elude capture for so many years.

"I think that in his role in a warehouse he probably had a little more freedom than you would have in a higher security institution," Bach said. "I don't know whether he escaped under cover of darkness."

Johnson had at least one run-in with the law after bolting from prison. He was arrested in Florida in 1969 and spent five years behind bars for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. California officials said they weren't notified, however, when Johnson finished his term so they could not ensure his return.

Johnson has been leading an "exemplary life" since moving to Texas, McGullion said, and even enjoyed a close relationship with one of his neighbors -- a Tomball police officer.

"He (the officer) never suspected him," McGullion said. "He worked on his truck and helped out with his trailer and had become a friend."

[hntngirl]

It's amazing he was able to avoid capture for that long, especially using his own name! Very sad for his wife.
A few years back there was a woman near here who the FBI had been looking for for 23 years. Her name was Katherine Power. She had taken part in a bank robbery that was intended to fund the Black Panthers. A police officer ended up getting killed. During her 23 years in hiding, she married and had a son. Her husband knew who she really was, but it was very sad to see the pictures of her son, who was 14 when she was arrested. What a hard thing to learn that someone you love isn't who you thought they were.

[BenGarrett]

Wow.

I say, if the guy has been living free and not committing any kind of a crime for what, about 20 years now, if I read the article correctly? If he has done that for 20 years, he's no threat to society... Let him go.

Dang, I think I'm gettin liberal. []

[hntngirl]

Dang, I think I'm gettin liberal.

[]Eeewww!

I say, if the guy has been living free and not committing any kind of a crime for what, about 20 years now, if I read the article correctly? If he has done that for 20 years, he's no threat to society... Let him go.

I don't think that's a good precedent. He committed a crime. Successfully evading capture shouldn't get him out of paying for it. I think maybe a more lenient punishment would be okay, if there was no violence against another person, which the article doesn't mention. Maybe 3 months in jail and probation?