70-Year-Old Man Arrested for 1963 Crime

Jan. 6 -- Nearly 40 years after his crime, the law once again may have caught up with Robert Lee Burns.

Burns, 70, of Eugene, Ore., was arrested by the FBI on Friday in connection with a 1963 bank robbery in which a California highway patrol officer was killed.

Now, California is seeking his extradition from Oregon to finish serving a life term he started way back in the 1960s.

Burns served five years in California and was returned to prisonin Oregon, where he served another four years for violatingparole.

Burns was supposed to go back to California to serve theremainder of his life term. But his efforts to reform caught theattention of then-Oregon Governor Robert Straub, who refused tosign a warrant to return him to California.

Family Denounces Action

Burns’s family has publicly denounced the hunt for Burns as crueland unreasonable, given his treatment for prostate cancer, twoprior heart bypass operations, a recent stroke and his crime-freelife out of prison.

“It’s taken them 17 years to come after him, and I think it’s really cruel,” said Shannon Riggs, Burns’ daughter. “He’s 70, he’s dying, and he has nobody but his kids and his grandkids? He doesn’t deserve this.”

Burns served eight years in an Oregon prison after a 1955robbery and was on parole in 1963 when he joined two other men torob a bank in Sacramento. One of his accomplices killed aCalifornia Highway Patrol officer during their escape.

All three received life prison sentences. The other two wereparoled long ago.

ABC Radio and The Associated Press contributed to this report.