David MacAnally/Eyewitness News
Greenfield - He's a convicted rapist and escapee from North Carolina. Now police have him in custody in Indiana with a new name and a whole new life.
A man who was about to be released from jail on a DUI charge this weekend shocked friends and family with his decades-old secret.
Officers at the jail thought they were releasing 48-year-old Bruce Youngs, who was arrested near his Hancock County home Saturday for drunk driving, when they found out the man was actually named Joseph Midyette, an escapee from North Carolina.
"Had it not been for the dispatcher, he would have walked out of the jail as Bruce Youngs, and we would have not known any different," Major Joe Hunt said.
Midyette, a convicted rapist, escaped from a North Carolina prison 19 years ago. Three years later, he was jailed in Marion County for raping an Indianapolis woman and served five years behind bars. That was before a new federal fingerprint database, so Marion County didn't know it was holding an escapee.
"For 11 years, he's been toeing the line, I guess," Major Hunt said.
At his home, Midyette's wife of ten years, who is recovering from back surgery, was not talking. Police say she knew nothing of his secret life.
"He was a very nice guy," one neighbor said. "The kind of person who would say hello."
"It's still hard to swallow," said another. "I have two young girls and a wife. He always made a point to wave to the girls. As nice as could be."
At the time of his scheduled release Saturday in Hancock County, a sheriff's dispatcher found Midyette had used many false ID's and ran his prints. The dispatcher told Major Hunt they may have an escapee, and asked if they had enough to hold him. Hunt checked the North Carolina prison system's website and found a photo of Midyette, ran it to the jail.
"They were about to bond him out, and I said, 'Is this Mr. Youngs?'," Major Hunt recalled. "They said it looks like Youngs, a younger Mr. Youngs."
So Youngs did not walk free after all. He has since waived extradition and has returned to North Carolina to finish his sentence.
"It is gratifying to know we got a sexual predator off the streets," Major Hunt said.
He also has a prior rape conviction in California.
Police say he won't fight extradition back to North Carolina.
