THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060326
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN AND LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITERS
LENGTH: 97 lines
To most people in Spring Lake, N.C., Curtis Brown seemed to be a normal, law-abiding senior citizen who paid his bills and lived near the town's former mayor.
Many of the 9,000 residents of the town, including Brown's son and daughter-in-law, were stunned this week when police arrested him.
His name is not Curtis Brown, they learned. It is Aubrey Cox. And Cox, now 74, was wanted for escaping from prison in Chesapeake during Dwight Eisenhower's first administration, in 1956.
According to authorities, Cox fled from the Virginia Correctional's Road Camp Unit 22, located in what now is Greenbrier.
On Dec. 26, 1953, Cox was convicted of breaking into a Richmond gas station. He was given a one-year sentence for the break-in and 10 years for being a repeat offender, said Lt. Bruce Moore of the Cumberland County, N.C., Fugitive Squad.
Cox was sent to jail on Jan. 7, 1954. On Jan. 5, 1956, he escaped while working as a trusty in the prison kitchen. He has been on the lam since.
According to the Virginia Department of Corrections, however, he was not a saint during his years of freedom.
Corrections spokesman David Botkins said Cox racked up a variety of charges and convictions - ranging from assault to murder - in New York during the 1970s. But state authorities in New York could confirm only one conviction: a weapons possession charge for which he served one year at Attica.
``If he came in on a murder conviction, we'd certainly have that,'' said Linda Foglia of the New York State Department of Correctional Services in Albany.
``I can't explain why our information doesn't match what New York is saying,'' Botkins said.
When Brown was arrested Monday in the town just outside Fayetteville, his son and daughter-in-law, Curtis and Marcia Brown, were shocked.
``Honestly speaking, we don't know what's going on,'' Marcia Brown said from her Spring Lake home Wednesday. ``We haven't talked to him yet.''
She said they knew nothing of his criminal past before this week. In the meantime, she said, her father-in-law is being held in a Cumberland County jail without bond pending a hearing in which Virginia officials will seek his extradition. The couple was told they could not speak with him until the weekend, she said.
``When he got picked up, he called us from the prison,'' Brown said. ``He said he couldn't talk much. . . ''
Requests for an interview with Cox were denied.
He appeared in court Wednesday, but the extradition hearing was delayed when he requested a public defender to represent him.
Details about the fugitive's life were sketchy Wednesday. It was not clear where he lived originally.
``We're still surprised,'' Marcia Brown said. ``Even if it's true, we don't know what's going on. We don't know anything. We never heard anything about this.''
Brown said her father-in-law lived by himself in Spring Lake. He did not work, she said, living on disability checks.
Those checks led officials to a fugitive of more than four decades.
Spring Lake Police Capt. Thomas Court said he has never seen anything like the case of Curtis Brown - a.k.a. Aubrey Cox - in the eight years he has been with the department.
Court said he was called by officials of the Virginia Department of Corrections who told him they had recently received access to computerized Social Security data. After months of cross-checking, they discovered that Brown was receiving disability checks at his address in Spring Lake.
Court said he double-checked the information and compared the data to water and utility records. He then sent two officers to Brown's house, but Brown was not home. So they left a note for him to contact police.
``They returned an hour later, and Brown was standing in his front yard, and he waved the officers down,'' Court said.
He was taken to the police station, where his Social Security number was confirmed. His description matched that provided by Virginia corrections officials.
Corrections officials faxed police in Spring Lake a copy of a fugitive indictment, a 1956 photo of Cox and the accompanying paperwork. ``Brown'' was then taken to jail.
``He was polite but surprised,'' Court said. ``He at first denied he was the same fellow.''
Court said he was careful to make sure he had the right man. Brown, he said, moved to Spring Lake in 1988. He was a familiar face to Court and several other veteran police officers.
The case has been the talk of the town, Court said.
It is now in the hands of Virginia authorities, he said.
Corrections spokesman Botkins said Cox would probably have to serve eight more years in Virginia, which would make him 82 when he gets out.
``The department very aggressively pursues absconders and other fugitives on a regular basis,'' Botkins said. ``In 1985, (Virginia) had 150 absconders. That number is now 32.''
DOC's absconder's unit uses ``various investigative techniques and searches and cross-checks'' to find fugitives, he said.
In an interview with the Fayetteville Observer-Times, Botkins said: ``We have extradited people who have been gone just as long as this, or longer. When he gets back here, we'll take a look at extenuating circumstances - his age and length of time since the offense.''
``But we can't say, `Ahhh, he's been gone for 40 years - the hell with him.' He's a fugitive, period.''
KEYWORDS: FUGITIVE ESCAPED PRISONER ARREST NORTH CAROLINA