Georgia Prison Escapee Captured After 48 Years

Robert Stackowitz escaped from a Carroll County prison work camp in 1968, when Lyndon B. Johnson was president and the Vietnam War was the big news of the day.

Almost 1,000 miles away, Bob Gordon soon thereafter made a life for himself in Sherman, Connecticut, where he lived for the better part of the next five decades.

And, on Monday, the two lives became one, when U.S. Marshals arrested Stackowitz, who they say has spent the past 48 years on the lam, living under an assumed name.

Marshals arrested Stackowitz in Sherman at 9:30 a.m. Monday, according to the Georgia Department of Corrections.

Stackowitz, 71, was serving a 17-year sentence for robbery by force when he escaped from the Carroll County Correctional Institution on August 22, 1968.

He had been convicted in Henry County in 1966.

Sherman is the least populous town in Fairfield County with a population of about 3,500. Living as "Bob Gordon," Stackowitz had been running a boat repair shop out of his home there, authorities said.

But, according to news reports, Stackowitz used his real name when applying for social security benefits.

The Georgia Department of Corrections' Fugitive Apprehension unit reopened his case about five months ago and began an investigation which ultimately led Marshals to his location in Connecticut, the department said.

Authorities say Stackowitz was arrested without incident.

"He was a little speechless," state trooper Michael Saraceno told The News-Times in Danbury, Connecticut. "I think it's been so long that I think he reached a point in his head where he thought they would never find him."

Stackowitz was being held Tuesday in a Connecticut jail facility awaiting extradition to Georgia. He was held in lieu of $75,000 bail and is next due in court on June 6.