YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. - An escaped killer with a handgun and a hitchhiking sign expressed relief at his capture on Monday after 10 days on the run, while authorities searched to the north of this tourist-packed park for a second fugitive and his female accomplice.
Tracy Province, 42, was caught as he walked in sleepy Meeteetse, Wyo., steps from a church where he sat in the pews a day earlier and sang "Your Grace Is Enough."
The search for inmate John McCluskey, 45, and Casslyn Welch, 44, focused for a time on sprawling Yellowstone National Park, which straddles Wyoming and Montana. But authorities now believe the two fled the park, with agents following leads in Montana.
"They consider themselves as Bonnie and Clyde," U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said at a news conference in Phoenix. "This is very, very serious business."
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Province, McCluskey and Daniel Renwick escaped from a private, medium-security Arizona State Prison near Kingman on July 30 after authorities say Welch threw wire cutters over the perimeter fence. Welch is McCluskey's fiancee and cousin. Renwick, who turns 37 today, was captured earlier in Colorado.
Efforts to find the remaining three intensified after they were linked to a double homicide in New Mexico, with the case airing Saturday on "America's Most Wanted."
On Sunday, Province walked into Meeteetse Community Church, about 60 miles outside of Yellowstone, wearing blue jeans, a blue checkered flannel shirt and a camouflage backpack slung over one shoulder, worshipper Jay Curtis said. Province looked like the many hitchhikers who pass through town.
Province closed his eyes and sang along with the band and seemed particularly engrossed when the band played "Your Grace is Enough" Curtis said.
Curtis said the church pastor paid Province to mow and trim the church lawn. Province got $40 and a jacket, authorities said.
The town came alive Sunday night with word that the stranger at the church was a fugitive, he said.
A woman who chatted briefly with Province on Sunday called police after recognizing him later on television, Gonzales said.
The Arizona Attorney General's Office on Monday charged two women, including McCluskey's mother, with helping the inmates after they escaped.
Province was serving a life sentence for murder and robbery out of Pima County. McCluskey was serving a 15-year prison term out of Maricopa County.
Forensic evidence linked the two inmates and Welch to the killings of an Oklahoma couple, whose remains were found in a charred camper Wednesday morning on a remote ranch in eastern New Mexico.
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Captured Monday, Tucson killer Tracy Allen Province, 42 and an accomplice were convicted in Pima County in 1993 of one count each of murder and robbery.
The men were on a weekend pass from a Tucson halfway house in January 1991 when they confronted Norman Knoblich, 56, as he locked up a midtown laundromat. The killers stabbed Knoblich 48 times before taking his wallet, leaving him to die as they headed to a bar.
Tucson double-murderer Daniel Renwick, 37 today, was captured in Colorado shortly after the escape after a police chase and a gunfight. Renwick was convicted in Pima County of two counts of second-degree murder, and in 2002 he was sentenced to two consecutive 22-year terms. He shot his ex-girlfriend, Kara L. Walker, 19, and her father, Daniel E. Walker, 55, in an October 2000 ambush after learning he was not the father of Walker's then-14-month-old son. The toddler was with his mother and grandfather when they were shot but was unharmed.
Arizona Daily Star
