Woman Who Escaped Prison 37 Years Ago Was Captured, Sent to Las Colinas

A woman who allegedly escaped from a Midwestern prison 37 years ago was captured in the Balboa Park-area neighborhood where she was living, authorities reported Tuesday.

Acting on information from Michigan corrections officials, San Diego police arrested Judy Lynn Hayman, 60, at her apartment in the 3500 block of First Avenue late Monday afternoon, SDPD public-affairs Lt. Kevin Mayer said.

Hayman initially claimed to be someone else and provided documents bearing her alias, but eventually admitted to her true identity under questioning, according to Mayer. Her 32-year-old son was visiting when officers arrived and seemed "quite surprised" by the revelations about his mother, the lieutenant said.

She was booked into Las Colinas women's jail in Santee and was being held without bail pending extradition proceedings.

Hayman pleaded guilty in June 1976 to a larceny charge in Wayne County, Mich., and was sentenced to serve between 16 months and two years in custody, according to prison officials there.

Ten months later, she escaped from the Women's Huron Valley Correctional Facility. She remained a fugitive until this week, using various aliases—including Judy Kayman and Brenda Bushmer—while at large, officials said.

It was the second time in six years that a female escapee from a Michigan penitentiary turned up in San Diego.

Carmel Valley resident Susan LeFevre, 53, was arrested at her home in April 2008, 32 years after she climbed a barbed-wire perimeter fence at the Detroit House of Corrections and absconded with help from her grandfather.

At the time of her escape, she had served about 12 months of a 10- to 20- year sentence for selling heroin to an undercover police officer at age 19.

LeFevre got married, had three children and lived under an assumed identity until authorities, acting on an anonymous tip, caught up to her. She was sent back to Michigan, served another year in jail and was paroled in May 2009.

—City News Service