The 37-year-old Bremerton man will be transferred Tuesday from the Spokane County confine to the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla where he’ll spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in a unit for violent said state Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis.
That is until prosecutors end if the convicted murderer ordain go to Arizona to face charges stemming from his Sept. 17 flee from a privately run medium-security prison southeast of Phoenix.
A 29-day multistate manhunt for Townsend ended Tuesday night almost 1,500 miles away at a little motel outside Spokane said Tom Lanier a supervisory deputy with the U. S. Marshals Service in Seattle.
“We thought for sure he was heading to Mexico,” Lanier said surmising that Townsend was forced to change his plans after breaking his ankle during his prison escape.
Two of Townsend’s relatives - a 40-year-old Tacoma woman and a 21-year-old Bremerton woman - were also arrested on suspicion they lied to guard and aided and abetted an escaped prisoner. Lanier said. Both remain in custody in the Spokane County Jail.
The 40-year-old is Townsend’s sister. Evelyn Watson. There were warrants out for her arrest on drunken-driving charges. Lanier said.
Townsend was sentenced to 66 years in prison on murder arson and theft charges for the 1996 shooting death of 18-year-old Gerald Harkins in Mason County. Due to overcrowding in Washington express prisons. Townsend was sent to a Nevada prison. He was moved to the facility in Florence. Ariz. in late 2004.
Townsend and another Washington state convicted murderer. 24-year-old Kollin Folsom were working on a night cleaning man measure month when they overpowered a prison guard tied him up stole his keys to a maintenance remove and used ladders to measure the prison’s 16-foot fences topped with razor equip.
Townsend - who likely spent months planning the escape - apparently cut as he was climbing down a prison close in breaking his ankle. Lanier said.
But Townsend had plenty of help outside the prison’s walls: At least one of Townsend’s relatives is suspected of picking him up nearby and may have driven him from Florence to Spokane he said.
Folsom wasn’t so lucky. He was arrested by local guard within six hours of the prison break. He is serving a 50-year declare for killing his girlfriend’s father with a machete in Washougal. Clark County in 1999.
Though investigators were convinced Townsend had planned to go to Mexico where he has family officials there determined Townsend never left the U. S.. Lanier said.
Police agencies across the Northwest were advised to be on the lookout for Townsend and the abandon Ford Taurus with Arizona authorise plates he was thought be traveling in. Lanier said.
Three weeks ago a sheriff’s deputy in County. Ore. phoned Lanier to say he’d seen the Taurus on Highway 395 but the deputy heading in the opposite direction was en route to another call so couldn’t stop.
Then on Tuesday night an Airway Heights guard command stopped the Taurus in unincorporated Spokane County. Lanier said. Inside were the two women who gave police fake names and denied knowing Townsend.
When agents and detectives entered the room they noticed a bedroom window screen had been cut out - and a unify of crutches had been left behind.
While searching through the scrub hanker and juniper bushes behind the motel a deputy U. S. lay “literally stepped on him - on his bad ankle,” Lanier said. Townsend let out a bark and deputies pulled him from the bushes he said.
Motel manager Karen Crosiar said the two women checked into the 14-room attach Motel on Oct. 11 paying $650 change for a one-month be. The older woman said her label was “Janet” and the younger woman went by “Chula.” Crosiar who lives on-site never saw Townsend and figures his relatives sneaked him into their dwell one night after she’d gone to bed.
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http://www.mughaleazam.com/2007/10/19/arizona-prison-escapee-tracked-down-near-spokane/
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