Ex-lover’s claim of threat ended 32 years in hiding
Police file details capture of escapee
It was a death threat that got a prison escapee captured after 32 years on the lam, according to an Arkansas State Police report.
On June 24, Steven Dishman, now 61, told his ex-girlfriend he was going to “blow her brains out and then kill himself,” according to the state police report released Friday by a prosecutor.
It was then, after keeping Dishman’s escape a secret for 27 years, that she decided to seek help.
She told her brother and sister-in-law that she had been living with a prison escapee all that time.
They knew Cody Hiland of Conway, the prosecuting attorney for Arkansas’ 20th Judicial Circuit, so they called him for help. After a gut-wrenching conversation in Hiland’s living room at 8 p.m. on that Saturday, he called the state police.
The next morning, while many neighbors were at church, police converged on a Springdale duplex and arrested Dishman.
He had moved in with his mother.
Dishman had been living in Conway and going by the name Ken Anderson, according to the state police report written by Special Agent Billy Ealy.
Imprisoned for burglarizing a Fayetteville restaurant, Dishman walked off a Little Rock work-release job site in 1985 and eluded capture for
Hiland said the situation reminded him of Stockholm syndrome, a term used to explain the apparently irrational feelings some captives develop for their captors. According to the police report, Dishman regularly told his girlfriend that if he got caught, she would go to jail, too, because she had kept his secret.
more than three decades.
But after spending 27 years living with the same woman in Conway, Dishman decided to leave her in May.
From a distance of about 170 miles, Dishman and his ex-girlfriend tried to reconcile by telephone and text message, but that didn’t work out. The tension escalated until he threatened to kill them both.
“She asked him to come back, but he said no,” Ealy wrote. “Later on, he wanted to come back, but she did not want him to come back. She wanted to be safe. During these conversations, he would curse her out.”
State police investigated, and Hiland said there was enough evidence to charge Dishman with terroristic threatening, but his ex-girlfriend decided she didn’t want to testify against him, according to an affidavit in the police file.
“It’s true that we were prepared to file felony charges for terroristic threatening, but the victim in the case clearly was not comfortable going forward,” Hiland said. “Based on the information I have, I consider her a victim over the course of several years.”
Hiland said the situation reminded him of Stockholm syndrome, a term used to explain the apparently irrational feelings some captives develop for their captors. According to the police report, Dishman regularly told his girlfriend that if he got caught, she would go to jail, too, because she had kept his secret.
Hiland said he thought she had suffered enough.
“I don’t think any of us fully understand unless we have been in an abusive relationship the full dynamics of that and the range of emotions involved in that,” he said. “But despite the threats she faced, she found the courage to come forward and as a result of that Mr. Dishman, one of the most wanted men in the state of Arkansas for many years, is now in custody.”
Hiland released the police report regarding the terroristic-threatening charge Friday after receiving a request from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette under the state’s Freedom of Information Act.
He had the ex-girlfriend’s name redacted from the police report.
She was a 22-year-old working her first job at Frank Brannan’s Drive-in in Conway when she met Dishman there in 1989 and they began dating. They moved in together six months later, in 1990. That’s when she learned Dishman was an escapee going by a fake name.
Their relationship was good at first but soured over the last eight to 10 years, according to the report.
Five years ago, Dishman had brain surgery because of a tumor. His ex-girlfriend, who worked two jobs to support them, refinanced her house and maxed out her credit cards to help pay the medical bills, according to the police report.
“The reason she stayed with him was because she loved him and cared about him,” Ealy wrote. “She was also scared of getting in trouble if he was caught.”
Dishman was convicted of burglary and theft of property on Dec. 20, 1984, and sentenced to seven years in prison for breaking into The Original Muskrat Roadhouse & Saloon in Fayetteville. Between $1,100 and $1,200 was reported missing, according to an article in the Northwest Arkansas Times.
As a minimum-security inmate at the Benton Work Release Center, Dishman was allowed to work at a construction site in Little Rock.
Dishman was dropped off at the work site on May 28, 1985, but his supervisor reported him missing at 8 a.m., according to newspaper articles.
Dishman was believed to be on foot and unarmed.
Earlier that year, he was held at Arkansas’ Cummins and Wrightsville prison units, said Elizabeth Chapman, a spokesman for the state police.
According to Washington County Circuit Court records, Dishman also was convicted of theft of property in 1976 for stealing a citizens-band radio from N.R. Sullivan of Springdale. Dishman was sentenced to a year in prison in that case.
In both criminal cases, Dishman entered a guilty plea before going to trial.
According to the Arkansas Department of Correction website, Dishman had four more burglary charges from the early 1980s in Benton County.
The escape charge against Dishman was dismissed in 1994, according to a Saline County Circuit Court filing. The case was “nol prossed” because of the passage of time, according to the Oct. 4, 1994, court filing.
Hiland said he believes the state police are still investigating the escape, and additional charges could be filed as a result.
Solomon Graves, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, said Dishman still owes the state six years in prison.
“Inmate Dishman is required to serve the balance of time owed prior to escaping while in the custody of the Benton Work Release Center,” Graves said in an email. “He currently has a parole eligibility date of May 16, 2020, and a discharge date of Nov. 15, 2023.”
If he hadn’t escaped, Dishman would have been eligible for parole on Dec. 28, 1987. His original discharge date was June 28, 1991.
In June, President Donald Trump nominated Hiland to be the next U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, but he has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
Dishman is currently being held at the Varner Supermax prison unit in Grady.
Dishman’s mother, Shirley Jones of Springdale, said her son lived “a good and quiet life for thirty-something years.”
“He walked away many years ago and he led a quiet life,” she told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in June. “About four years ago, he had an operation for a [brain] tumor he had. He came out of it paralyzed on his whole right side. He’s crippled. He can barely walk, and he can hardly use his right arm at all.”
She said he would occasionally visit her over the decades he was wanted by police.
“He was just a good kid,” she said.