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 Eric Matthew Frein, 31, had eluded capture by hundreds of law
enforcement officers since the Sept. 12 ambush outside a state
police barracks in Blooming Grove. The attack killed Corporal Bryon
Dickson, 38, and wounded Trooper Alex Douglass, 31.
Frein's capture, about 35 miles south of where the ambush occurred,
may finally shed light on the mysteries that have surrounded a
brazen crime against law enforcement officers, and how the suspect
was able to stay one step ahead of authorities for 48 days.
"Eric Frein had a mission and that was to attack law enforcement,"
Frank Noonan, commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police, told a
news conference. "If he got out of those woods, we were very
concerned he would then kill more law enforcement, if not
civilians."
Noonan said at this stage there was no indication of anyone else
involved. He said police were seeking search warrants for places
Frein may have stayed.
Prosecutors will seek capital punishment for Frein, who faces a
first-degree murder charge and one count of homicide of a police
officer, among others, Pike County District Attorney Raymond Tonkin
said.
The manhunt has involved hundreds of officers from state, local and
federal agencies, using helicopters, armored vehicles and
sophisticated tracking technology.
In the end, officers from the U.S. Marshals service on a routine
patrol captured Frein at 6 p.m. outside an abandoned aircraft hangar
at a shuttered resort in Tannersville, Pennsylvania.
Frein, who was on the FBI's most wanted list, surrendered without
incident, police said, and two firearms were found in the hangar but
Frein was carrying no weapons.
Afterwards, he was driven to the Blooming Grove barracks in the
slain trooper's cruiser, wearing handcuffs, police said. He was then
escorted past the spot in the parking lot where the two officers
were gunned down during a midnight shift change and into the
building.
The prosecutor said the suspect could be arraigned on Friday.
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Police have said the suspect, an expert marksman who dressed like a
Serbian soldier in a war reenactment group, held a longstanding
grudge against law enforcement but they have provided little
evidence. The sniper was not targeting any individual officer, they
say.
Tannersville, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Philadelphia, is the
center of the sprawling wooded terrain where police concentrated
their search.
From the outset, authorities insisted that Frein, an expert marksman
who lived with his parents in Canadensis, 20 miles south of the
barracks, was hiding nearby, taking refuge in the dense state
forests and game lands that blanket the region.
The heavy police presence and the aggressive tactics employed during
the manhunt rattled many residents of the normally peaceful area of
northeastern Pennsylvania, even as the shootings appalled the
community.
The region, one of the popular places in the U.S. Northeast for deer
hunting, was put off limits to hunters this season, a big setback to
the local economy.
Many parents near the search area were planning to stop their
children from trick-or-treating on Friday. With Frein's capture, the
annual rite of Halloween is likely to be back on.
(Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst; Writing by Frank McGurty;
Editing by Eric Walsh)
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