How was Charles Free caught?

“ABC News” tonight had an interesting story about an escaped convict, real name Jack Hazen, assumed name Charles Free, who managed to live undiscovered in Las Vegas for the past 31 years. In 1975 he had been convicted of armed robbery, then ten months later escaped. He has not gotten in trouble with the law in all the years since. His wife and two daughters apparently knew nothing of his secret, are shocked, but say he’s reformed and are appealing for leniency. Extradition proceedings are pending. He may have to serve the rest of his original sentence in Florida, as well as additional time.

“ABC News” did not address the most interesting question: How was Hazen/Free’s cover blown? The kvbc.com site briefly addresses this:

The newly formed DOC Cold Case Fugitive Unit in Florida connected the dots by comparing electronic databases to known fugitives. They tipped off local officers and Hazen was arrested again.

Oddly enough, for the last three years Hazen has been living just two doors down from a Clark County Marshall’s house.

That’s something, but I’d still like to know what in Hazen’s Free-era info tipped off authorities to his real identity. Probably he got a little too sloppy, feeling the trail had grown cold. The data in computers doesn’t grow cold, it just gets passed around and passed around and mixed and matched and analyzed and re-analyzed.