Florida sex offender who dodged police by faking his own death in 2010 is found living in small Indiana town
A Florida sex offender who faked his own death to stay on the run from police has been arrested.
Gary Wayne Howard, 74, was arrested by US Marshals at his home in Indianapolis on Thursday, almost 16 years after he disappeared in 2010.
When US Marshals cuffed him, he made a chilling admission. “I had hoped to be dead before you caught up with me,” he said, according to WXIN.
Howard was found guilty of 22 counts of possessing child pornography in 2007, according to court records seen by The New York Post, but managed to violate his probation three years after being sentenced.
An arrest warrant for Howard was issued in Pinellas County in March 2011, when he failed to register as a sex offender. Cops later discovered an Enterprise rental car in Howard’s name near Mauzy Lake in Morganfield, Kentucky.
After discovering the abandoned vehicle, officials lost track of the convicted sex offender.
Eventually, the sex offender was found to be residing in the community of Irvington, 120 miles east of where his car was found, through a sweeping analysis of surveillance footage and extensive interviews, according to WXIN.
Upon arresting Howard on his front porch, officers said that the 74-year-old had a “significant number” of relatives who he could “depend on to help him stay off the grid.”
He will be extradited to Florida in the coming weeks, where he will be charged with violation of probation and 32 charges for failure to register as a sex offender.
“This arrest exemplifies the tenacity and determination of Deputy US Marshals and our task force partners to bring every fugitive to Justice,” William Berger Sr., US Marshal for the Middle District of Florida, told WXIN. “You can run, you can hide, but law enforcement never stops hunting those who defy it – justice has a way of catching up to those who run from it.”
In Indiana, Howard will also face an “Adam Walsh prosecution case,” a federal law that requires all sex offenders to be registered online, according to The New York Post.
Under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, a criminal’s status as a sex offender is publicized on the internet. The law is named after a 7-year-old boy who was kidnapped in a Sears department store and murdered in 1981 by serial killer Ottis Toole.
The Independent has contacted the US Marshals Service and the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Office for comment.
