Acting on a tip from the Michigan Department of Corrections, San Diego police went to an apartment on Monday in the Hillcrest neighborhood, where a woman matching the description of fugitive Judy Lynn Hayman answered the door.
She identified herself as Jamie Lewis and produced government documents with the name, San Diego police Lt. Kevin Mayer said. Officers, however, remained suspicious because of inconsistencies in her story and her resemblance to an old Michigan mug shot they were holding.
“Her eyes gave her away,” Mayer said. “The eyes in the picture matched the eyes of this woman.”
The officers took her to a police station, where she eventually acknowledged being Hayman, Mayer said.
Hayman, 60, was being held in a San Diego County jail awaiting extradition to Michigan, where she escaped from the Ypsilanti prison in 1977 while serving time for attempted larceny, Mayer said. He did not know if she had retained an attorney and no court date had been set.
When she escaped, Hayman was about halfway through a minimum sentence of 1 1/2 years for attempting to steal clothes from a Detroit-area store.