Sex offender wanted in Fort Worth found dead in South Carolina

A dangerous sex offender who escaped from a Fort Worth halfway house this month was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound over the weekend in South Carolina, an official with the Texas Department of Public Safety said Tuesday.

Also Tuesday, four people accused of aiding in his Aug. 4 escape were arrested in Tarrant and Hood counties.

Sex offender Brent Jozefkowicz, 48, was found dead Saturday in Myrtle Beach, S.C. He was positively identified late Monday, DPS Sgt. Lonny Haschel said in a news release Tuesday.

No additional details about his death were released.

Jozefkowicz removed his ankle monitor the night of Aug. 4 and fled from the halfway house. He was last seen in Fort Worth walking on Texas 199 (Henderson Street/Jacksboro Highway).

Those arrested Tuesday were Jon Ryan Evans, 45, of Benbrook; Russell W. Shook, 54, of Granbury; Teresa Shook, 51, of Granbury; and Paula Pedigo, 45, of Fort Worth.

They were arrested by DPS troopers, Fort Worth and Granbury police, deputies with the Hood County Sheriff’s Department, and officials with the Texas attorney general’s office and the U.S. Marshals Service.

The four are expected to be charged with hindering apprehension, a third-degree felony, officials said.

DPS officials described Jozefkowicz as a sexually violent predator. In 1984, he was sentenced to two years in prison for indecency with a child involving a 14-year-old girl in Wichita County, according to DPS records.

In 1989, he was convicted in North Carolina of assault on a female and placed on probation. In 1992, he was charged in Georgia with sexual battery, solicitation of sodomy, contributing to delinquency and simple battery. But prosecutors dismissed the charges, records show.

In 1992, he was convicted of sexual assault in Wichita County and sentenced to 16 years in prison, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records. He completed his sentence on March 3, 2009.

He was ordered into the state’s civil sex offender program, run by the Office of Violent Sex Offender Management. The program was created in 1999 to supervise those offenders who have two sexual offense convictions and a “behavioral abnormality.”

Initially, the hope was that with therapy and other treatment, the offenders could be safely returned to the community.

This story was originally published August 18, 2015 at 3:03 PM with the headline "Sex offender wanted in Fort Worth found dead in South Carolina."