By John C. Ensslin
The Rocky Mountain News
GARDNERVILLE, Nev. — 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 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, 1976. 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, 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.’ ”
Copyright 2007 Rocky Mountain News