Arkansas inmate on lam for 32 years visiting mom when caught

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) The mother of an Arkansas prison escapee who had been on the run for more than three decades said she has been in contact with her son since soon after his escape and that he was visiting her when he was arrested.

Steven Dishman, 60, was arrested Sunday at a home in Springdale in northwest Arkansas by local law enforcement and state troopers, according to the state Department of Correction.

Shirley Jones told The Associated Press on Monday that her son has been living in southern Arkansas, but would not specify where Dishman has been living or for how long.

Jones said she came into contact with her son about six months after he escaped from prison. Dishman is not married and has no children, according to Jones.

Jones said her son has not been in trouble since his escape and that “he’s a good person,” and “very creative.”

State police Lt. Liz Chapman said a person told officers about Dishman’s whereabouts over the weekend, and he was arrested without incident. Chapman said people who may have known Dishman by a different name are being questioned.

State police spokesman Bill Sadler said there is an ongoing criminal investigation of Dishman’s escape and anything that may have happened subsequent to it.

Dishman was serving a seven-year sentence for theft of property and burglary convictions in Washington County when he escaped from the department’s Benton Unit in central Arkansas on May 28, 1985.

Dishman was sentenced in December 1984 and would have been eligible for parole in December 1987, according to the department. His original release date was scheduled for June 1991.

There are currently four escapees still on the run from various Arkansas prisons. Their offenses include fleeing, possession of a controlled substance, theft of property and theft by receiving.

A man accused of scamming Southwest Floridians recently escaped from an Arkansas prison work camp.