In this guy's defense, if you were trying to hide from The Law and wanted to go to a place that no one's paying attention to, Delaware is a smart choice.

There's a 63-year-old guy named Jose Romero.  And back on December 13th, 1979, he escaped from prison in South Carolina while he was on a work crew.  He was 11 years into an 18-year sentence for armed robbery.

Well . . . for the past 40 YEARS he's managed to avoid getting caught.

But that all blew up on December 28th when he was walking around Dover, Delaware DRUNK . . . and the cops stopped him.  He had an ID that said "Arnaldo Figueroa," but his fingerprints showed he was actually Jose Romero.

It turns out he's been hiding in Delaware all this time without ever getting caught.

He's now in prison there and he'll be extradited back to South Carolina soon to face charges for escape. 

(CBS News)

(Here are his mugshots from 1977 and now.)