Virginia Deputy Gives Details on Captured Convict’s Killing

A man who escaped from a Virginia prison seven years ago and was arrested in Costa Mesa on Friday was serving a 20-year term for second-degree murder in the shooting of a security guard who caught him breaking into a truck, a Campbell County, Va., sheriff’s deputy said Saturday.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Ronald Adams said that after Daryle Bean Mayhugh, 35, was spotted by the security guard, the two men exchanged gunfire and both were hit. The security guard died of his wounds. Mayhugh, wounded in the leg, was captured nearby.

Adams said the gunfight occurred in Spotsylvania County, about 40 miles north of Richmond.

FBI agents arrested Mayhugh on Friday at the busy intersection of Fairview Road and Baker Street. The agents declined to disclose what led them to Mayhugh, who had walked away from a minimum security prison near Rustburg, Va., 100 miles west of Richmond, in September, 1981.

Adams said that as late as last year, correctional officials thought that Mayhugh was in Canada. Adams indicated that Mayhugh had some previous arrests for allegedly breaking into vehicles.

When agents stopped Mayhugh, he claimed he was Jason Lee Stevens, but his fingerprints matched those of Mayhugh. He was being held in Orange County Jail without bail.