Report: Maine fugitive captured in Vt. after 33 years

NEWPORT, Vt. -- A Maine fugitive who had been on the run for 33 years after escaping from Maine's Aroostook County Jail has been arrested in northern Vermont, and a misspelling of his name on a 1981 warrant reportedly may have helped him evade capture.

Vermont State Police troopers arrested 56-year-old Albert Marcheterre on Nov. 2. He had been living in Craftsbury, about 63 miles northwest of Burlington.

Court documents say Marcheterre escaped from the Houlton jail in Maine in April 1981, where he was being held on a theft charge, after hiding in the exercise yard when other inmates went inside. He was 23 at the time, reports the Bangor Daily News.

The Daily News reports an arrest warrant issued for Marcheterre in 1981 misspelled his name, which may have helped him evade capture.

The circumstances surrounding his arrest weren't detailed in a federal warrant obtained by the paper. He was arrested on one count of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, reports the paper.

He was arrested several times between 1992 and 2002 under an alias, reports the paper, and his real identity was apparently uncovered when he was sentenced in 2004 to five years in federal prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm, reports the paper.

It's not clear when federal officials realized Marcheterre was the person listed on the 1981 warrant.

"Because of the misspelling on the 1981 complaint [for the arrest warrant], the outstanding arrest warrant had not been previously associated with Marcheterre's FBI number and criminal records," McCarty wrote in the federal complaint.

Marcheterre appeared in a Vermont court Tuesday, where he agreed to return to Maine.