Michael Smith, who escaped from Correctional Training Facility in Soledad on June 7, 1968, was arrested on Thursday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.

Smith escaped while serving the third year of a five-year-to-life sentence for first-degree robbery. His case was reopened in December 2003 and a special agent tracked him down in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

Smith is in jail in Oklahoma awaiting an extradition hearing, California prison officials said in a statement.