Monday, April 07, 2008
Floyd fugitive is captured at Texas motel
A federal official said that "advanced tracking devices" were used to help trace Steven Branscome.
Steven Dale Branscome
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FLOYD -- A Virginia man accused in the March 28 wounding of a state trooper was arrested in Texas early Sunday morning after a brief standoff with federal officers.
A U.S. Marshals SWAT team apprehended Steven Dale Branscome, 32, at a motel in New Boston, Texas, shortly after 1 a.m., according to information released at a news conference Sunday afternoon in Floyd County.
Branscome, a Floyd County native, is charged with shooting Trooper Richard Hughes in the neck after leading him and another trooper on a chase from Giles County into West Virginia. Branscome then escaped, police say.
Hughes was treated and released from a hospital and is back at work.
Wayne Pike, U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Virginia, wouldn't detail how federal and state officials were able to trace Branscome to Texas, but said they used "advanced tracking devices" to determine the general area.
Local officers in east Texas were then dispatched to look for him.
Branscome has been sought by law enforcement since the shooting, repeatedly eluding police even after it seemed he was cornered.
Police weren't looking for Branscome on March 28, even though it was later discovered that there were numerous outstanding warrants for his arrest in several localities. He's wanted on charges including stealing firearms and vehicles, eluding police and making threats to kill someone with whom he'd had a past relationship.
The troopers in Giles County were attempting to serve a warrant on a William Pennington. When the troopers approached his house, a black car that had been nearby sped off.
They chased it for about seven minutes up a dirt mountain road, until it crashed after crossing into Mercer County, W.Va. Police said a man got out of the car, which turned out to have been stolen from the Floyd County School Board, hid briefly behind a tree, then began shooting at the troopers.
He escaped after hitting Hughes.
A massive manhunt began in West Virginia, where Branscome now faces charges of malicious wounding and wanton endangerment, and continued until March 30.
That's when authorities said they had spotted Branscome in Floyd County. A sheriff's office investigator, who said he recognized Branscome, and a state trooper followed a car into a rural area, where the driver pulled into a driveway and ran into some nearby woods.
A daylong search, which included the use of a state police helicopter and tracking dogs, failed to turn up Branscome. Last Monday, the manhunt was called off briefly before being resumed Tuesday when authorities said they thought he was still in the area.
On Wednesday, a Floyd County tree farm reported that one of its trucks, a flatbed Ford, had been stolen. Later that day, two truckers reported seeing the stolen vehicle in Statesville, N.C., north of Charlotte.
Pike said that investigators believe Branscome abandoned the truck and stole a car there, driving it back toward Virginia to Ashe County, N.C., which abuts Grayson County, Va. There, they believe he stole a 1999 Chevrolet passenger van from a church.
Over the weekend, a U.S. deputy marshal in Texas spotted the van in a small town near Texarkana, not far inside the border with Arkansas. Joined by Texas Rangers and local authorities, officials say they staked out the motel and spotted Branscome going in and out of a motel room to the van.
After evacuating the occupants of adjacent rooms, they confronted Branscome. He briefly "refused to cooperate," Pike said, and barricaded himself behind some mattresses.
About five minutes later, he surrendered.
Pike said he was told that some money and drugs were found in the room, but he had no word on whether Branscome was armed. He said he did not know of any shots being fired during the arrest.
He and other officials speculated that Branscome was trying to get as far away from the manhunt as he could, possibly hoping to get into Mexico. He had no known connections to Texas, Pike said.
Branscome is now being held in the Bowie County, Texas, jail awaiting extradition to Virginia, said Virginia State Police spokesman Sgt. Bob Carpentieri.
In a statement Sunday, Col. Steven Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police, said, "This is the safe resolution that we were hoping for."
He credited the massive joint police presence in Floyd County with being "able to force Branscome out into the open and away from the support network that enabled him to elude investigators for the past week."
The state police said they will continue to look for anyone who might have aided Branscome in his flight.
