Orlando Sentinel

Woman who escaped Florida prison 34 years ago is recaptured

Paula Eileen Carroll had been living under the name ‘Sharon Brown.’

Anika Myers Palm

Orlando Sentinel

6:07 PM EDT, April 20, 2010

It's a script straight out of "Law & Order": A woman escapes the prison system, vanishes without a trace and gets captured more than three decades later — on her birthday.

But this was no television episode. This was Paula Eileen Carroll's life today.

Carroll and another inmate were discovered missing from what is now Lowell Correctional Institution in Ocala on Sept. 3, 1975. Although the other inmate was recaptured, Carroll had been at large since her escape.

This morning, Carroll was arrested at her home on Albert Drive in Melbourne.

She told the Brevard County Sheriff's fugitive unit officers who arrested her that she had "been thinking about this day for a long time" and was "glad it's over." Today is Carroll's 56^th birthday.

Carroll had been living under the name Sharon Brown, which was associated with the social security number of a West Virginia woman, according to Paula Bryant, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections.

She had been sentenced to five years in prison on July 18, 1975, on charges of buying, receiving or concealing stolen property before making her escape less than two months later.

Authorities learned yesterday that Carroll was in Melbourne from a tipster who contacted the Florida Department of Corrections, which in turn worked with the Brevard County Sheriff's Office fugitive unit to arrest Carroll at 8:55 a.m. today.

She is being held without bond at the Brevard County Jail.