LEAVENWORTH, Kan. - When US Marshals approached James Robert Jones on a South Florida street Thursday morning, the man convicted of murdering a fellow Army private 40 years ago did not try to fight or flee, but surrendered peacefully, and will soon return to a maximum security prison here, 37 years after he escaped. 
 
 "I knew it would catch up to me one day," Jones reportedly told law enforcement. 
 
 The former Army private was convicted of murder in 1974, while stationed at New Jersey's Ft. Dix, and ordered to carry out his 23 year sentence at the US Disciplinary Barracks on Ft. Leavenworth. 
 
 In 1977 Jones escaped from the facility, the US Military's only maximum security prison, where imposing walls and towers earned it the nickname the "Castle." He spent the next 37 years on the lam. 
 
 Barry Golden, a senior inspector with the US Marshals Service in Miami, which coordinated the investigation that led to Jones arrest, described his initial escape nearly four decades ago as "very elaborate." 
 
 In January, Army investigators, believing Jones to now be living in Florida, contacted Golden's office for assistance. Marshals ran a prison photo of Jones through a database, and it matched closely with the photo on a Florida driver’s license first issued in 1981. 
 
 Marshals began observing the man they thought to be Jones, now living under the false name Bruce Keith, and on Thursday morning, arrested him outside his work location in nearby Pompano Beach. 
 
 According to Golden, Jones had been living a complete new life in Florida. He had "significant others," Golden told 41 Action News, declining to go into detail, and told investigators he was only one year from retirement. 
 
 Jones will soon be extradited back to Kansas to resume his sentence, Golden said, and will likely far additional charges related to his escape. ||||| DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say a military fugitive who escaped federal custody more than three decades ago has been captured in South Florida. 
 
 The U.S. Marshals Service reports that 59-year-old James Robert Jones was arrested Thursday morning when he showed up for work in Pompano Beach. 
 
 Jones had been listed as one of the U.S. Army's 15 Most Wanted for escaping from a federal prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., in 1977. As a private in 1974, Jones was sentenced to 23 years in prison for premeditated murder and aggravated assault. 
 
 Authorities say Jones obtained a fraudulent Florida driver's license in 1981 and used the name Bruce Walter Keith. He had been living at a home in Deerfield Beach since at least 2005. 
 
 In January, the Army requested assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service in finding Jones. ||||| It began nearly four decades ago when a British-flagged yacht fled police during a night chase at sea. At the helm: A man hinted to be a federal drug informant. 
 
 It ended last month in Mexico, where the fleeing skipper was run to ground by a lucky tip. 
 
 Now, Robert Woodring is serving the prison term he artfully avoided for so many years — at age 81. 
 
 Woodring, who used to live in Fort Lauderdale, Boynton Beach and Pompano Beach, was supposed to start serving a federal prison sentence in 1977 for crimes committed earlier that decade. But he escaped to live free — until authorities tracked him down last month in Mexico, federal prosecutors said Friday. 
 
 His capture was a lucky break. 
 
 FBI agents were seeking another fugitive in the Guadalajara area and received a tip that Woodring was a wanted man and living in the region, U.S. Marshals spokesman Barry Golden said. 
 
 Robert Woodring captured poster Sun Sentinel Robert Woodring, 82, was a South Florida fugitive who hid out for 37 years, authorities said. He was caught in Mexico in December 2014. Robert Woodring, 82, was a South Florida fugitive who hid out for 37 years, authorities said. He was caught in Mexico in December 2014. (Sun Sentinel) (Sun Sentinel) 
 
 Mexican authorities questioned Woodring and turned him over to the feds after concluding he had no legal right to remain in Mexico. 
 
 It was unclear Friday how long Woodring had been there or what he was doing, but Golden said Woodring lived with a Nicaraguan woman there. 
 
 "For someone to be on the run for 37 years, I can only imagine that guy was bragging that he eluded capture for more than three decades because, after all this time, how would anyone in Guadalajara have known anything about this?" Golden said. 
 
 Woodring first tried to elude authorities on Jan. 14, 1975, when U.S. Customs Service agents went to Haulover Inlet to seize the Gemini, Woodring's 60-foot Pacemaker twin-screw motor yacht, appeals court records show. 
 
 But as the agents, accompanied by Dade County police officers, arrived on an unmarked boat, Woodring headed south, not stopping his British-registered vessel, records show. 
 
 Officials chased him into the Atlantic Ocean. Two police helicopters and a Coast Guard cutter joined the pursuit. They made radio contact with Woodring and told him to "heave to" and let them board. He refused to stop. 
 
 "He [later] testified that he believed that he was not required to do so because he was by then in international waters … did not know the identity of his pursuers or that they were officers and … was fearful of harm to his vessel or his person," the appellate judges wrote. 
 
 Woodring cut off radio contact and the chase was abandoned at nightfall. He was arrested in South Florida three days later, without the boat. 
 
 He was later convicted of removing a yacht to prevent authorized government seizure and was sentenced to 10 months in prison in October 1975. 
 
 For reasons that were unclear Friday, Woodring remained free and was later found guilty of mail fraud and mail fraud conspiracy for a scam involving the yacht. He was sentenced to serve a total of 7 1/2 years for the 1975 and 1977 convictions and ordered to surrender in September 1977. 
 
 A Sun Sentinel newspaper article from 1986 identified Woodring as a Drug Enforcement Administration informant who was caught on surveillance tapes from 1977 making incriminating statements to another man about Fort Lauderdale lawyer Ray Sandstrom. Sandstrom, who was never charged, called Woodring a "con man" at the time and said he did nothing wrong. 
 
 Authorities charged Woodring — in his absence in 1984 — with bond-jumping and failing to surrender to prison. He was recently transferred from Los Angeles to the federal detention center in Miami and is due in court Jan. 14 to tell a judge if he plans to fight the bond-jumping case. He has already begun serving the 7 1/2 year prison term for his convictions from the 1970s. 
 
 pmcmahon@tribune.com, 954-356-4533 or Twitter @SentinelPaula
– A convicted murderer who escaped prison and made a new life for himself in Florida is back in custody after 37 years, reports AP. James Robert Jones murdered a fellow Army private and got sentenced to 23 years at the military's maximum security prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas back in 1974. Three years later, he busted out and landed in Florida, where he assumed a new identity as Bruce Keith, authorities say. He had been on the Army's "15 Most Wanted" list. Jones' life on the lam began unraveling when US marshals, acting on a tip from Army investigators, used a photo database to find a match between his prison photo and one on a bogus Florida driver's license issued in 1981, reports KSHB. That led to surveillance of "Keith" and his uneventful arrest yesterday in Pompano Beach. "I knew it would catch up to me one day," he reportedly told the arresting officers. It's the second recent story about a fugitive from 1977 being recaptured.