You can run but you can't hide.

California prison officials have confirmed that a man who escaped from custody more than 30 years ago has been captured and returned to custody.  The former fugitive, Michael Morrow, was first detained in 1977 and sentenced on an armed robbery charge.

Morrow, now 70, was taken into custody in his Arkansas home earlier this week.  The arrest took place without incident.

A spokesperson for the CA prison system said he had been serving time at a facility just east of Los Angeles.

Court records show a judge ordered him to serve five years to life on charges relating the use of a firearm during a robbery.   Morrow escaped with less than one year left on that sentence.

Authorities have reportedly said there isn't a whole lot of information available in terms of how he managed to get away, but it is believed the then 34 year-old may have scaled a fence.  Former employees of the detention center said they didn't realize he was missing until the inmates were counted later that day.

The US Marshals said he's been at large ever since, although he had been arrested in central Arkansas in the mid 1980s.  At that time he had been taken into custody on suspicion of murder.   He was booked into the county jail but was later released.  No formal charges were ever filed.

At the time of this arrest, he had been using the name Carl Wilson.  Jail officials were never aware that he was a wanted fugitive on the run.  Had this scenario played out in modern times, the now senior citizen would not have been so lucky.

Today, every person who is arrested is fingerprinted when they are being booked into the system.  The Department of Justice keeps a record of these files and is able to determine whether someone has committed previous crimes, if they have outstanding warrants or if they are a wanted fugitive.

The jail submits all defendant fingerprints to the DOJ in order to run each person through a background screen.  Had this process been available at the time Morrow escaped,  the jailers would have known exactly who he was once the background check was returned.

The California prison system would have been notified and he would have been shipped back to the West Coast right away.

Authorities say nearly 19,500 inmates have escaped from California prisons in the past 36 years.   Nearly 98 percent of these people have since been recaptured.   Prison officials say that Morrow has been their  second longest wanted fugitive.

They are pleased he is finally being brought to justice.

Robert Hamm, an escapee who managed to break free in 1965, holds the record of being the longest.

The US Marshals said that Morrow initially tried to deny he was the man they were looking for.  Since that time, however, he has come clean about his identity and is being cooperative.