U.S. Air Force fugitive missing for 35 years found living in California

Ashley May | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Air Force fugitive missing for 35 years found living in California An Air Force Captain who has been missing for 35 years was found in California and charged with desertion, multiple news outlets report. Veuer's Sam Berman has the full story.

A U.S. Air Force officer who went missing in 1983 was found last week, living in California.

Capt. William Howard Hughes, Jr., who was going by the name Barry O'Beirne, admitted his true identity after becoming the subject of a passport fraud investigation during an interview with the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service on June 5. Hughes, now 66, was arrested by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations the next day.

Hughes said he became depressed in the Air Force, created the fictitious identity and has been living in California ever since, according to an Air Force press release.

He was last sent overseas, to the Netherlands, on July 18, 1983, to work with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officers. He was supposed to return to Albuquerque, N.M., on Aug. 1 of that year. But the Air Force never heard from him since he left for Europe.

His car sat in the Albuquerque airport's parking lot. Lists of plans and books he wanted to read were found inside his home, the Albuquerque Journal reports.

Later that year, the unmarried Seattle native was declared a deserter — something one of his sisters refused to believe.

“We do not feel he disappeared voluntarily,” his sister, Christine Hughes, said in a 1984 Associated Press article.

His family speculated he was abducted.

Hughes, who worked out of the Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center in N.M., was last seen in Albuquerque withdrawing $28,500 from his bank account at 19 different branch locations.

He had a Top Secret/Single Scope Background Investigation clearance, which meant he had access to U.S. and NATO secret information. He handled classified planning and analysis of NATO's command, control and communications surveillance systems.

He is awaiting pre-trial confinement. It's unclear what charges he will face.

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