Raymond Scully Prison escapee was serving a 10-year term for drug conviction.
Posted on 03/17/2005 5:25:31 AM PST by Arrowhead1952
Lack of proper vehicle stickers starts man's undoing
By Tony Plohetski
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Steve Johnson said he was on his way home Tuesday night after a 13-hour shift at Dell Inc. when he saw the police lights flashing.
Johnson, 52, pulled over at Braker Lane and Lamar Boulevard in North Austin, where rookie police officer Ryan Huling told him he was being stopped for having an expired registration sticker and no inspection sticker.
A secret Johnson had kept for nearly 30 years was about to unravel.
Huling, following procedure, said he ran a state and local warrant check on Johnson. Nothing.
Then he typed in Johnson's name for a federal check, and up popped an outstanding warrant for a man named Raymond Scully, who used the alias Steve Johnson and had the same birthdate as the man Huling had pulled over.
Scully had escaped from a state prison in North Carolina in 1977 and had a scar on his right arm, the computer informed the officer.
Huling said he was suspicious. He walked from his patrol car to the driver's window of Johnson's 1989 Mitsubishi, handed him a ticket and asked him to show his right arm.
"I saw the huge scar," Huling said Thursday. "I said, 'This is crazy and too much of a coincidence,' so I decided to investigate further."
He called North Carolina authorities, who sent the last photo they had of Johnson. Huling said it looked like the same man.
He then arrested Johnson and took him to the Austin Police Department for fingerprinting. A technician determined a few minutes later that the prints matched those of the North Carolina escapee.
On the way to the Travis County Jail a short time later, Huling said Johnson confessed.
He told the officer that he had fled prison one year into his 10-year sentence on drug charges, married, had a daughter and built a good life. He said he moved to Austin a decade ago and had kept his secret from most everyone he met for nearly three decades.
Johnson remained in jail Wednesday afternoon. North Carolina authorities said they plan to extradite him in the next few days.
Johnson said in a 15-minute interview from jail that he doesn't fault Huling for doing his job. He called him "the most intelligent and thorough cop in Texas."
However, he said he thought officials long ago forgot his case and had no interest in sending him back to prison — the thought of going back frightens him.
"I think I'll be easy prey," said Johnson, unshaven and dressed in a gray and black jumpsuit.
Johnson was convicted in June 1975 for selling drugs. He said Wednesday that the verdict against him was based on false information by two police informants.
North Carolina prison officials said Johnson escaped twice from the Pender Correctional Institute near Wilmington during a two-month period in 1977. He was captured nearly a month after his first escape in a mobile home with several other prisoners, according to an article in the Wilmington Morning Star.
Days later, Johnson escaped again with several other inmates. He said Wednesday that the group was on a prison bus and that he and other prisoners kicked out its back door and fled.
"I just jumped over a fence and ran," Johnson said. "I went through a swamp, and I just left."
He said he hitchhiked to Phoenix, where he got construction jobs. He said he started using the name Steve Johnson, which he picked "out of the blue," and made up a new Social Security number.
He also met and married Bonnie, and they had a daughter, Jamie Lee, who is now 22. Both live in Austin and could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The couple later moved from Phoenix to Flagstaff, then to Massachusetts, where his wife attended school to become an engineer, Johnson said. He said he got a job as a vocational counselor at a mental facility.
About three years into their marriage, Johnson said he told his wife he had escaped prison. They were going to visit his parents in Virginia Beach, Va., and Johnson said he thought he needed to explain why he and his parents had different last names.
Johnson said he and his family moved to New Mexico in the 1980s and ended up in Austin 10 years ago after his wife got a job in the high-tech industry. Johnson said he was attracted to Austin by its live music scene and has played guitar for several bands.
He said he maintained computer databases at a state agency for several years before getting a contract job with Dell in 2001. He said the company hired him full time in November. Dell officials said Wednesday that they could not confirm Johnson worked there.
"It's been a real normal life," Johnson said. "I got married, had a family and worked. I did everything anybody else does."
Johnson said he never told his daughter about his past. He worried from behind bars Wednesday how she would find out and what she would think.
Huling, who joined the department in June 2003 and is assigned an evening patrol shift in North Central Austin, said after the technician told Huling that the fingerprints matched, Johnson asked if he could go home. Huling told him that he couldn't.
Once they arrived at the jail, Huling said he escorted Johnson inside and handed him over to a Travis County corrections officer.
As he walked away, Huling said he looked Johnson in the eye and wished him luck.
10 years for a drug conviction? Was he smuggling?
Too bad that John Kerry's past hasn't cost him a little more.
you have to wonder what has happened to all the taxes he has paid in the last 30 years, via a bogus SS#
That question is similar to what someone asked here on the local morning talk show today.
I am serious. I really would not want to be the judge assigned to this case. Its one of those tough decisions that I know that judges have sleepless nights about. Sending a scum to prison is easy, that's a no-brainer. Sending a person who as already proved that they can walk the walk - that is tough.
and I bet the thought is about the same...gravy for the politicians
how many million people a year give up their witheld taxes because they are here illegally and using phoney SS#'s
20 - 40 million?
Your comment brings to mind something Somebody once said (paraphrase), '... Now, go and sin no more.'
The purpose of prison is to protect society, punish and rehabilitate the person so he can return to society. Prisons do not rehabilitate. If the article is accurate this man has rehabilitated himself, and is no threat to society. If I were the judge I would set him free on an extended probation.
You left our deterring others as a purpose of punishment/prison. There might be a need to make at least some sort of example out of this man to show others that there is no escape from the long arm of the law.
Thanks for the note! I will have to tell Steve that re. probation. It will make him feel good knowing there are some people who feel that way. I was married to Steve for 20 years. His drug charge was minor (acid) and I'm not sure they even found anything. He only pleaded gulity as he was supposed to get a year-not 10, but the judge had it in for him. He is no threat to society that is for sure, not like the guy in his cell block who stabbed a girlfriend 21 times! Yet Steve (Ray) may have to serve the rest of his 8 year sentence and 20 years for escape.
I worked with steve johnson no bs I have started with him as a side by side co worker and so fourth....This has really been bugging me since I had found steve is a very kind man I don't know Raymond Scully but I do know the man that we grew to love from work and that is Steve Johnson I pray every night that he gets to live like the way he deserves FREE!!!!! I hung out of work with this man lots of did lots of us know about his wife and his daughter that he loves very much......This man has given life a second chance and didn't take it for granted like most people do...I have seen this man bust his behind off just like any hard working person trying to make a living....
I worked with steve johnson no bs I have started with him as a side by side co worker and so fourth....This has really been bugging me since I had found steve is a very kind man I don't know Raymond Scully but I do know the man that we grew to love from work and that is Steve Johnson I pray every night that he gets to live like the way he deserves FREE!!!!! I hung out of work with this man lots of us did. Lots of us know about his wife and his daughter that he loves very much......This man has given life a second chance and didn't take it for granted like most people do...I have seen this man bust his behind off just like any hard working person trying to make a living....
I am Ray Scully/Steve Johnson. The drug charge was one that there wasn't any drugs ever found on me. Two people got caught selling drugs, testified that they were my drugs and they got probation, I got ten years. To those who think that I should be in prison, let me assure you that anyone can go there. I have been there and I don't think you'd like it, mayby not survive it. I will try to restart my life for the second time. I could say a lot, but some of you have an error in your head instead of a brain.
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