A conman from Florida who escaped the authorities for 37 years has finally been captured. Robert Woodring, 81, failed to appear for a seven-year prison sentence for mail fraud back in September 1977. While investigating another fugitive case, officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) received a tip that he was living in Guadalajara.
It is not yet clear how long Woodring had been in the area, but U.S. Marshals spokesman Barry Golden said he lived with a Nicaraguan woman.
“For someone to be on the run for 37 years, I can only imagine that the guy was bragging that he eluded capture for more than three decades because, after all this time, how would anyone in Guadalajara have known anything about this?” Golden said.
Woodring, who had reportedly been a federal drug informant, fled from Florida authorities aboard his 60-foot yacht. Two police helicopters and a Coast Guard vessel pursued him but the chase was abandoned in the Atlantic Ocean when night fell and Woodring refused to respond to their demands.
Three days later, he was arrested in South Florida, but jumped bail. He was subsequently charged with a 10-month prison term for escaping on the yacht and a seven-year sentence for mail fraud.
Woodring is now held in the federal detention center in Miami, where he has already begun serving the sentence for his convictions.