He Fled County in 1985 : TV Show Catches Up to Longtime Fugitive

A man who escaped from the Orange County Jail in 1985 while awaiting trial on charges of attempting to murder a Fountain Valley police officer was arrested by FBI agents Wednesday in a small town near Mobile, Ala.

Michael Wayde Mohon, 42, and his wife, Sharon Rose Mohon, 34, were arrested outside an auto-parts store in Eight Mile, Ala., after agents received an anonymous telephone call from a woman who saw the escapee’s picture on an April 12 television episode of “Unsolved Mysteries.”

An FBI spokesman said the caller had hired Mohon to paint her house only a few days before watching the show. Mohon had been working as a self-employed painter, he said.

Mohon and his wife had been living in a camper in the small community since January, 1988, authorities said. Before that, they had lived in the Birmingham area.

In Eight Mile, the couple used the aliases of Steve and Mary Bostwick.

Mohon was arrested and charged with attempted murder in December, 1983, after exchanging gunfire with a Fountain Valley police officer. He was shot several times in the right arm, ankle and buttocks, Fountain Valley Police Sgt. Larry Griswold said. Mohon and his wife--then his girlfriend--were caught allegedly attempting to burglarize a home on the 9100 block of La Colonia Avenue..

In 1985, however, Mohon escaped from an Orange County sheriff’s deputy at UCI Medical Center in Orange while being taken to a physical-therapy session intended to treat the injuries he suffered in the shooting. Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson said that Mohon allegedly pulled a .38-caliber revolver--apparently stashed outside the hospital’s physical therapy building by his wife--and held a deputy at bay before escaping in a flatbed truck driven by his wife.

Police caught Sharon Mohon later that night. She pleaded guilty to aiding her husband’s escape and was given a 2-year sentence, serving 9 months before being paroled. She violated her parole the next month, authorities said.

A week after his escape from the medical center, Mohon was arrested in Mesa, Ariz. There, he was charged with the robbery and attempted kidnaping of a Mesa man after leading police on a 100-mile chase that ended when the fugitive crashed into a police roadblock, Olson said. However, Mohon identified himself to Mesa police as Claude Banks Tillman, a transient from Midland, Tex., so police were unaware that he was wanted in California.

Looking to Escape Again

At his arraignment, Mohon pleaded guilty and asked for immediate sentencing “because he knew he’d have to be moved around a lot and that’s when he would have his chance to escape again,” Olson said.

While being taken to a jail in Phoenix, Mohon and another prisoner escaped from the van transporting them by kicking out a partition that separates the driver from the inmates.

Olson said that Mohon had not been seen or heard from until his arrest Wednesday.

Doug Marshall, an FBI spokesman in Alabama, said that Mohon and his wife were arrested without incident and that Mohon did not use a pseudonym. Marshall said that agents found several pistols while searching Mohon’s camper.

Mohon is awaiting a removal hearing scheduled for today.

Sharon Mohon was taken into custody by state authorities for allegedly aiding in her husband’s escape and for her parole violations.

Olson, who noted that his department is “thankful for that show because (Mohon) wouldn’t have been arrested if it hadn’t been on TV,” said that he expects Mohon to be extradited to face charges in California within 90 days.