Michigan fugitive captured in California after 37 years in hiding

A 60-year-old woman who fled a Michigan prison nearly 37 years ago has been captured in San Diego, where she was living under an assumed name, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.

Judy Lynn Hayman was arrested on a fugitive warrant earlier this week after a detective working cold cases stuck inside during a recent winter storm found her fingerprints in an FBI database, said Lieutenant Russ Marlan of the Michigan Department of Corrections.

"The investigator inside his desk had about 40 cases of these old fugitives that had never been apprehended," Marlan said. "He started working all these old cases."

He said Hayman's prints were in the database from previous arrests in California.

Prison records show Hayman had served eight months of a 16-24 month sentence after pleading guilty in 1976 to attempted larceny when she was 23 years old. Under Michigan law, attempted larceny is the attempted theft of property worth over $100.

"She was stealing clothing from a couple of stores in Detroit and Lavonia," Marlan said. "It was larceny, probably a reduced charged of attempted larceny - essentially shoplifting."

Hayman was living under the name Jamie Lewis when San Diego police found her at her home near Balboa Park, said San Diego police spokesman Lieutenant Kevin Meyer. Her 32-year-old son was visiting at the time.

She was being held without bail at Las Colinas Detection Facility.

Hayman, who also went by the names Brenda Bushner and Judy Kayman, could face additional time for leaving the Michigan prison.

Marlan said that when Hayman escaped in 1977, the Huron Valley Correctional facility, the state's only women's prison, had little security.

"An escape could have been walking away in the middle of the night," he said.

(Reporting by Ned Randolph; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Cynthia Osterman)