Stephen Craig Campbell, 76, assumed the identity of Walter Lee Coffman, who died in 1975 at age 22. Campbell first applied for a US passport in Coffman’s name in 1984, submitting his own photograph and current address. Over the years he obtained government documents, bought property and fraudulently collected more than $138,000 in Social Security retirement benefits. The deception unravelled after a September 2019 driver’s licence renewal, and FBI agents arrested him in New Mexico in February 2025. He was sentenced to 81 months in federal prison.
A fugitive who was wanted in Wyoming on an attempted murder charge spent more than four decades living under the identity of a deceased former college classmate, according to the US Department of Justice.
FBI SWAT teams arrested him in 2025
Campbell became a fugitive after being accused in 1982 of attempting to kill his estranged wife’s boyfriend, according to court documents cited by the DOJ. In 1992, he contacted the Social Security Administration in an attempt to remove Coffman’s death record. On October 15, 1995, he fraudulently applied for and received a replacement Social Security card in Coffman’s name, using an Oklahoma driver’s licence in that name. Campbell was not arrested until February 2025, more than five years after the licence renewal. On February 19, FBI SWAT teams from Albuquerque and El Paso, supported by aerial assets, approached his property in Weed to execute arrest and search warrants.
Prosecutors said he planted a homemade explosive device at the man’s home. It detonated when Campbell’s estranged wife opened the package, causing severe lacerations and the loss of one of her fingers. The explosion also started a fire that spread to a second apartment unit.
Campbell took steps to secure the identity long before the discovery of his fraud.
The FBI and the Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General jointly investigated. The case was originally initiated by the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and the Fraud Prevention Unit. The investigation uncovered Campbell’s true identity as a long-time violent fugitive.