2023-07-16 03:49:00
Por Doha Madani – NBC News
The manhunt for the escaped Pennsylvania inmate suspected of several crimes, including the murder of a woman in New York, ended Saturday night, state police said.
Michael Charles Burham, 34, was taken into custody at 5:50 p.m. in Warren County, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said.
Agents learned where he was from neighbors who alerted them following they heard his dog barking and ran into a man who assured them he was just camping out in the open, Bivens said.
Michael Burham, the inmate who escaped from a prison in Pennsylvania.AP
But the landowner recognized Burham’s face from the news and contacted deputies. Burham fled into the woods following the encounter.
“That was our strategy from the beginning,” Bivens said, “to push him, push him to make a mistake, which he ultimately did.”
[Hallan con vida a estadounidense secuestrada en Jalisco: va de regreso a California, según el FBI]
Burham escaped from the Warren County Jail on July 7 by climbing the metal roof racks of the jail yard. He then climbed down using bound sheets, authorities said.
Staff realized he was missing within minutes, and authorities began an eight-day manhunt involving 15 federal and state agencies.
Bivens said the fugitive was trapped Saturday in a wooded perimeter regarding 5 miles north of the city of Warren that was surrounded by officers.
“He ran into perimeter officers there, tried to get out and hide, and officers came up behind him,” Bivens explained.
Bloodhounds and other police tracking dogs were used in the search for Burham. “He was being tracked and pressured by a line of tactical members,” the official said.
Burham was held at gunpoint and is under arrest on a flight charge.
Authorities said Saturday they believe the fugitive remained in the Warren area. Bivens said police conducted at least one search in the region that was promising but ultimately inconclusive.
As he was being hunted, Bivens warned area residents that it was “absolutely likely” Burham was armed, and that no one should go near him if they saw him. On Saturday he clarified that the man was not armed when he was captured.
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Warren County spokeswoman Cecile Stelter said they knew Burham possessed “survival skills” that helped him live in the woods while evading capture.
[Dos presos se fugan de una cárcel de Philadelphia haciendo un agujero en la valla de un patio de recreo]
Authorities are investigating whether Burham received help from anyone else.
Burham is being held in the Warren County Jail for kidnapping a couple while fleeing authorities in New York, where he is a suspect in the May 11 murder of Kala Hodgkin.
Authorities charged him with fleeing to avoid prosecution in New York’s Western District Court in May. The case was dismissed without prejudice on June 16, according to court records.
A federal criminal complaint alleges that Hodgkin was found shot to death in her home. At the time of the murder, there was an active warrant accusing Burham of raping the woman, according to the complaint.
As police were on their way to Hodgkin’s home, they received a call that Burham had allegedly attempted to break into the home of an ex-girlfriend and then proceeded to set her car on fire, according to the complaint.
Burham went on the run, sparking a multi-state search for his capture that ended May 24 in South Carolina, the Jamestown Police Department in New York said.
The complaint alleges Burham kidnapped a couple at gunpoint from a Sheffield, Pennsylvania, home while on the run. Both were found alive in a cemetery in North Charleston, South Carolina.
There was a note in her vehicle allegedly written by Burham telling her father she was “safe for now” and apologizing “for all the trouble I caused the family,” according to the complaint.
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