Arizona Prison Escapee Captured in Wyoming

According to Wyoming Police Lt. Mark Trimble, U.S. Marshals have captured an Arizona prison escapee wanted in connection to an Oklahoma couple found in a burned camper last week in New Mexico.

Monday, August 9th 2010, 12:31 pm

By: News 9


Staff and Wire Reports

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Montana – According to Wyoming Police Lt. Mark Trimble, U.S. Marshals have captured an Arizona prison escapee wanted in connection to an Oklahoma couple found in a burned camper last week in New Mexico.

According to David Gonzales of the U.S. Marshals, marshals arrested Tracy Province in Meeteetse, Wyoming, a town just southeast of Yellowstone National Park. A citizen saw Province sitting on the steps of a local church. After she chatted with him, she went home, saw the news, recognized the man she talked with as Province and called authorities.

U.S. Marshals set up surveillance at the church he was seen at and he returned. Province was arrested without incident at about 6:20 a.m.

At first Province denied his identity, but then admitted it was him and was actually relieved the manhunt was over for him, Gonzales said.

Province had a 9MM handgun on him at the time of his arrest.

U.S. marshals said Monday morning they had made a significant development in the hunt for three people wanted in the couple's murders. More than 100 armed park rangers and federal agents on Monday searched tourist-packed Yellowstone National Park for two convicted killers who escaped from an Arizona prison and their suspected accomplice.

Efforts to find the trio intensified after one of the inmates was linked to a double homicide in New Mexico.

The rangers patrolled campgrounds on the sprawling 3,472-square-mile park that spans Montana and Wyoming.

U.S. Marshals are still on the hunt for inmate John McCluskey, as well as suspected accomplice Casslyn Welch.

"We have learned McCluskey and his partner consider themselves Bonnie and Clyde. They joke about it and take the persona that this is a movie or a joke, but it's not it is serious business," Gonzales said.

The U.S. Marshals Service believed Province got separated from McCluskey and Welch. Authorities don't believe the other two have wilderness survival skills, so it's possible they could be staying in campgrounds and at truck stops.

"They are very dangerous individuals, very desperate individuals, and the longer they're out there, the more desperate they become," said Thomas Henman, supervisory deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service in Phoenix, on Sunday.

Province, McCluskey and Daniel Renwick escaped from a private, medium-security Arizona State Prison near Kingman on July 30 after authorities say the 44-year-old Welch threw wire cutters over the perimeter fence. Welch is McCluskey's fiancee and cousin.

The three later kidnapped two semi-truck drivers at gunpoint and used the big rig to get away, authorities said. The group left the drivers unharmed in the truck at a stop just off Interstate 40 in Flagstaff and then fled. Renwick was arrested Aug. 1 in Colorado.

The manhunt intensified Saturday after forensic evidence linked at least one of the inmates to the killings of an Oklahoma couple.

The badly burned skeletal remains of Linda and Gary Haas -- both 61 and from Tecumseh, Okla. -- were found in a charred camper Wednesday morning on a remote ranch in eastern New Mexico. Their pickup truck was found later 100 miles west in Albuquerque.

Family members of the Haases' have traveled to Arizona for their remains. Their daughter has kept silent about the suspects and capture of Province.

The Haas' daughter is waiting for her parents remains to be released from the New Mexico Medical Examiner's office. A friend of the family said the funeral will likely be the end of next week

Meanwhile, authorities said the case is moving quickly and now it's only a matter of time before they catch the remaining fugitives.

Province was serving a life sentence for murder and robbery out of Pima County, Ariz. McCluskey was serving a 15-year prison term for attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm out of Maricopa County, Ariz.

Renwick had been serving a 22-year sentence for second-degree murder.

Publicizing their photographs in newspapers and on television, including a segment Saturday night on "America's Most Wanted," has helped generate tips, investigators said. A series of billboards featuring the three are also planned.

The two other suspects are still believed to be driving a gray Nissan Sentra.

A $40,000 reward for McCluskey's capture has been issued.

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