A U.S. Army fugitive, on the run for 37 years for killing another soldier, has been captured with the help of facial recognition technology.
James Jones, 59, one of the Army’s 15 most wanted men, was arrested on Thursday when he showed up at his job in Pompano Beach, Florida, according to
CBS Miami.
"The first words out his mouth were, 'I knew it would catch up to me one day,'" said U.S. Marshal’s spokesperson Barry Golden.
Jones was convicted of murdering a fellow Army private in 1974 and sentenced to 23 years in prison. But three years later, he escaped.
"Somehow he made it out and disappeared and took on this new identity here in Florida," Golden said.
Jones assumed the identity of one of his old friends, Bruce Keith, and fraudulently obtained a driver’s license in 1981.
In January, the Army asked the U.S. Marshals Service for help in investigating the cold case. The agency used its facial recognition on Jones’ old mug shot and eventually came up with a match to his current fake license.
Jones had been living since 2005 in Deerfield Beach, Fla., where he was known by neighbors as a quiet person who kept a boat and good cars in his driveway.
Jones is being held in Broward County Jail, and will eventually be transferred to the custody of the U.S. Army.
Golden added "There’s an old saying in the Marshals service, 'You can run but you can’t hide.' My spin on that is 'You can run. You can hide. But you can’t run and hide forever.'"
William Snelson, assistant director of the Marshals Service Investigative Operations Division, told
Fox News, "Capturing a cold case fugitive who has been on the run for almost 37 years is a great arrest for law enforcement, but it also is comforting to the families of the original victim to know the person who escaped from custody is now behind bars again."
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