US Marshals capture Oklahoma fugitive in California theater

<br>LOS ANGELES (AP) _ U.S. Marshals arrested one of their most wanted fugitives, Darrell Dwight Bellamy, while he was in a theater showing the movie ``The Sum of All Fears.'' <br><br>Members of

Tuesday, June 11th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ U.S. Marshals arrested one of their most wanted fugitives, Darrell Dwight Bellamy, while he was in a theater showing the movie ``The Sum of All Fears.''

Members of a marshal's Los Angeles task force received a tip on Bellamy's whereabouts. He was wearing a baseball hat low over his face when marshals followed him Monday from an apartment complex to a movie complex in Long Beach, 25 miles south of Los Angeles.

``We showed a photo to the ticket sales office and they confirmed that he was our guy,'' Deputy Marshal Supervisor Kurt Ellingson said Tuesday.

Bellamy was wanted for his alleged role in a cocaine and marijuana distribution ring that extended to several states, including Oklahoma, Kansas, Illinois and Michigan.

He was added to the Marshal Service's ''15 Most Wanted'' fugitive list in April at the request of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma.

Bellamy and his co-conspirators allegedly took a drug courier _ suspected of skimming profits _ to an apartment and dipped her feet in a pot of boiling oil, made her remove her clothing and burned her arm with a hot iron, Ellingson said.

Bellamy's co-defendants in the drug distribution ring are in the middle of a trial in Tulsa, Olka., Deputy U.S. Marshal Rick Holden said from his Tulsa office, which got the initial tip and relayed it to Los Angeles.

``We just happened to get a lucky break that led us to him,'' Holden said. ``We finally got our man.''

Marshals believe Bellamy knew he was being followed, bought the movie ticket and ducked into the theater hoping to shake his pursuers.

``He only got to watch the last 15 minutes of the movie,'' Ellingson said.