An escaped inmate who managed to evade capture for more than 36 years has been caught, ending the longest manhunt in California history.
Michael Morrow was in prison for armed robbery when he escaped in 1977, making his way to Arkansas where he started a new life with a new name.
Police and FBI investigators continued the search for the escaped inmate for several decades, and caught a break thanks to the work of the FBI’s special service and criminal analysis units. New information led them to Jessieville, Arkansas, where the 70-year-old Morrow was living under an assumed name.
Though Morrow initially tried to deny his identity, police said that “since the arrest he has been cooperating with law enforcement authorities.”
Police in Arkansas almost nabbed Morrow once before. In 1984 he was arrested in his new home south of Little Rock on suspicion of murder, but he was later released without being charged.
Morrow was living under the alias Carl Frank Wilson at the time, so police in California never found out about the arrest.
“Databases weren’t as automated in 1984 as they are today,” said Terry Thornton of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Morrow has been booked on a fugitive arrest warrant and is in the process of being extradited back to California to serve the rest of his sentence. He had already served four years of a five-years-to-life sentence for two counts of first-degree burglary with the use of a firearm.
Other escaped inmate have not made it as long as Michael Morrow. An Oklahoma prisoner named Joshua Silverman broke out of prison this week, but the escaped inmate had a change of heart and called police to let them know he was in a van he stole from a hospital. He was returned to prison a short time later.
