Oklahoma Prison Escapees Nabbed In Wisconsin

Monday, July 10th 2006, 9:46 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Two Oklahoma prison escapees are due in court for arraignment Tuesday in west-central Wisconsin where they were arrested early Monday morning after leading police on a high speed chase.

Truman Gross and Benjamin Beck were arrested just after 1 AM near Tomah, Wisconsin, after the stolen car they were driving ran over a spike strip police used to flatten the tires. Monroe County Sheriff Pete Quinn says the two then drove into a ditch and refused to stop until police rammed the car.

Quinn says Gross and Beck stole the car while robbing a family in Preston, Minnesota, at gunpoint. The sheriff says the fugitives left a car they had stolen from a couple in Bella Vista, Arkansas, at the home in Minnesota.

Gross and Beck disappeared last Sunday from the Lexington Correctional Center in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Department of Correction spokesman Jerry Massie says authorities will try to extradite Gross and Beck back to Oklahoma. But Massie says because of possible robbery charges in other states it isn't known when the two would be returned.