Mother's Obituary Leads Officers to Prisoner Who Escaped in 1981

There is something to be said about being persistent and never giving up on something.

At least that is what a group of detectives found out after picking up a cold case about a convict who escaped in 1981.

A post shared by Matt Dahmen (@matt.dahmen) on Apr 13, 2018 at 10:05pm PDT

Stephen Michael Paris escaped from Jess Dunn Correctional Center in Muskogee, Oklahoma in October 1981.

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He had served just 19 months of his nine-year sentence. He was a drug dealer and was arrested for possessing and selling drugs. He was 22 years old.

After he broke out of the prison he shared with almost 1,200 other convicts, he appeared on the Oklahoma Department of Corrections’ “Most Wanted” list.

In an online database of escaped former inmates, Paris’ description was recorded along with a request for people to call the authorities if they know his whereabouts.

Detectives searched for the fugitive for many years, to no avail, until they found another clue almost 40 years later.

Paris’ mother passed away on Easter Sunday and her obituary gave the detectives their last clue to finally discovering where Paris was hiding.

“She is survived by her husband of 41 years, Homayoun Rahimi, her son Steve Chavez, her sister Janie Ward, her brother Chris and his wife Candace Ward,” reads part of her obituary.

Paris, now 58, had been living in Houston under the pseudonym Steve Chavez.

The investigators tracked Paris down using his mother’s obituary and arrested him at an office in Houston where he worked. His fingerprints confirmed his identity.

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It’s hard to believe that after all these years of hiding, the fugitive’s identity was leaked by his own mother.

This just goes to show how important it is to never give up. In the end, it pays to be persistent.

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