San Diego Woman Arrested 32 Years after Escaping Prison

A 53-year-old woman who escaped from a Detroit prison 32 years ago was arrested in San Diego, where she was living under a false name, police officials said. Susan Lefevre was taken into custody Thursday in the Carmel Valley area.

Authorities mentioned the woman was initially sentenced in Saginaw County to 10-20 years in jail on Feb. 27, 1975, for conspiracy to violate drug laws and violation of drug laws. However, in 1976, she managed to walk out the Detroit House of Corrections after serving only one year of sentence.

Susan Lefevre lived in San Diego for nearly 10 years, using the name “Marie Walsh.” The woman got married and raised three children.

“It seemed like she was living a typical suburban mom life,” Chief U. S. Marshal Mark Owen of the Southern District of California office in San Diego said, according to the Detroit Free Press.

In March, a tipster had alerted Michigan officials to Lefevre's whereabouts. Authorities obtained a copy of Marie Walsh’s thumbprint from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and found out it matched Lefevre's thumbprint on record.

The woman admitted she was Susan Lefevre, when she was confronted with several photographs and the fingerprint. When she was arrested, she told investigators that her family had no idea she was a fugitive. Lefevre is currently awaiting extradition to Michigan in order to serve the rest of her sentence.

Lefevre's husband of 23 years, Alan Walsh, issued a statement to the media: “Our family is threatened to be destroyed by something that happened when Marie was a 19-year-old teenager 34 years ago. She has the full support of her extended family and her many friends.”

The woman would probably have to serve five to nine years in prison before being eligible for parole, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections said.