Federal agents using sophisticated technology tracked a man being sought for the murder of two Cobb County real estate agents from Atlanta to a community near Milwaukee, where he was arrested early Saturday after a high-speed chase.
Stacey Ian Humphreys is charged in the double homicide and robbery Monday of Lori K. Brown and Cynthia Williams, whose bodies were found in the sales office of their out-of-the-way west Cobb subdivision.
Humphreys was arrested in a hospital parking lot in Hartford, Wis., just northwest of Milwaukee, after Wisconsin police chased him about 30 miles. Humphreys, 30, who has a lengthy criminal record, was first identified as a suspect in the deaths after fleeing police Friday morning in DeKalb County.
After he escaped a manhunt in DeKalb, officers of the U.S. Marshals Service in Atlanta and several other cities tracked Humphreys electronically by locating his cellphone as he drove north from metro Atlanta through Tennessee, Kentucky and Illinois before he was apprehended in Wisconsin, investigators said.
"Investigators would like to thank the United States marshals for helping them track Humphreys all night," said Cobb police Cpl. Brody Staud.
Staud refused to give details of how Humphreys was traced.
After his arrest Saturday, Humphreys was taken to the Waukesha County Jail. He will appear in Waukesha County Intake Court on Monday on charges related to the chase in Wisconsin, officials said.
A hearing on returning Humphreys to Georgia will be held later this week, said Kathy Watkins, a spokeswoman for Cobb District Attorney Pat Head. If Humphreys fights extradition, Gov. Sonny Perdue will send a "governor's warrant" to his counterpart in Wisconsin, Watkins said.
Lead Cobb homicide Detective Eddie Herman and Detective Bud Sears flew Saturday from Atlanta to Milwaukee in hopes of talking to Humphreys, Staud said.
Cobb police took out murder and armed robbery warrants against Humphreys late Friday.
Humphreys matched the description of a heavyset, balding man in his 30s who was seen driving a black Dodge Durango that was parked in the driveway of the Oakwind subdivision sales office just before the women's bodies were discovered. He was tracked throughout the night Friday by federal agents, who entered the case at the request of Cobb police.
'Small . . . comfort'
Brown's fiancé expressed relief Saturday at the news of Humphreys' capture. Johnnie Tuggle, 23, a Cobb County police recruit, said he gave "a little sigh of relief" when he learned Humphreys had been apprehended.
"It is a small amount of comfort," Ted Williams said from Louisiana, where he had traveled Friday for his wife's funeral Monday in her hometown of Covington, La.
The funeral service for Lori Brown was held Friday in Powder Springs.
After Saturday's arrest, Oakwind residents and co-workers of the slain women placed flowers at a makeshift memorial at the mailbox outside the model home. A blue crucifix had been placed on the mailbox and a funeral spray of white flowers was hung on the front door.
Susan Dirr, who has lived in the Oakwind subdivision for three years, expressed relief that a suspect had been arrested. "We can breathe a little easier," Dirr said. Across the street, Donna Flemming said hearing the news was like receiving a pardon from the prison of fear neighbors had lived in for the past five days.
"Maybe the kids can go back on the street," Flemming said as she paused from planting bulbs. "But still, you just feel so sorry for the families that they still have to go through the trial. It will always be with them."
Ceci Osburn, president of the 1,800-member Cobb Association of Realtors, welcomed the arrest.
"I'm certainly thrilled by the news, if that's the right term to use about such a tragedy," Osburn said during a telephone interview from San Francisco, where she was attending the National Association of Realtors. "It is quite amazing that we have the ability to track someone across state lines and have the joint effort of all police groups to make the capture."
For many real estate agents the slayings were a safety wake-up call, said Lane Jones, training director for Prudential Georgia Realty. "Obviously there is a sense of relief that someone has been captured and charged, although this tragedy is causing us to be concerned and aware of our surroundings," Jones said.
Humphrey's grandmother, with whom he has lived since being released from prison in October 2002, said her grandson was a good person but that she didn't know anything about the crime he is charged with committing.
"I don't know anything, I'm sorry," said Imogene C. Jordan when she was reached Saturday by telephone at her home in Dunwoody. Asked to describe her grandson, Jordan, 72, said he "was a very private person" and declined to add more.
The chase that ended in Humphreys' capture began early Friday when he bolted from his Dunwoody home.
Dozens of police officers, two helicopters and a tracking dog searched the area after the 270-pound man outran two Cobb detectives who approached after seeing Humphreys loading suitcases into his Durango.
Humphreys was spotted about 30 minutes later being picked up by a woman driving a silver or champagne-colored 2001 Toyota Camry, police said. Humphreys later rented the silver Jeep Cherokee that he was driving when captured. The woman who aided Humphreys has not been identified but likely will face charges, Staud said.
Out-of-the-way site
Evidence that detectives collected from Humphreys' Durango and his grandmother's home led them to formally charge him with the murders. The warrants state that the women were killed at 12:45 p.m. Monday and say that Brown, 21, and Williams, 33, were shot with a pistol. The warrant does not specify what property was taken after the two were killed.
Police have said they do not know whether Humphreys had prior contact with either victim. Nor have police said if a motive has been established for the crime.
A builder working in Oakwind found the women's bodies about 1:45 p.m. Monday. The builder reported seeing a black Durango in the driveway when he went into his office in the basement of the model home shortly before finding the women dead.
A resident of the neighborhood gave police a description of the car and its driver.
Brown and Williams had attended a weekly sales meeting at their company's headquarters in Alpharetta before opening the sales office about noon, Tuggle said.
Before Humphreys was identified as a suspect in the slayings, lead detective Herman said that whoever killed the pair probably had previously visited the subdivision. Herman said he based his surmise on the fact that Oakwind is well off major thoroughfares, hidden away on side streets near the Paulding County line.
"I suppose, theoretically, somebody could have just been randomly driving around," Herman said Tuesday, "but our working theory is that he had some knowledge because it was back out of the way."
Humphreys, who has worked as an electrician since his release from prison, has a record of felony convictions dating back to 1993, including burglary, auto theft and forgery. He first came to the attention of detectives investigating the real estate agents' slayings as one of hundreds of people in the metro area who own black Dodge Durangos, said Maj. Robert Pittman of the Cobb County police.
After talking to Humphreys on the phone Tuesday or Wednesday, Pittman said, detectives asked his parole officer to call him in for a meeting Friday at 8 a.m., which he did not attend.
When Humphreys did not show up for the scheduled meeting with his parole officer, DeKalb County police were dispatched to his grandmother's home. Before the DeKalb officers arrived, the two Cobb police detectives staking out the home on Cherring Drive saw Humphreys loading suitcases.
As they approached Humphreys, he ran, police said, disappearing into the neighborhood's wooded lots. He was talking into a cellphone as he fled, police added.
No violence on record
Humphreys' prior convictions are for nonviolent crimes, said Heather Hedrick, spokeswoman for the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.
"He was a property crime offender with no history of any sort of assault or violence in his past at all," Hedrick said. Humphreys was released after satisfying the condition that he learn a trade while in prison.
Since his parole he had regularly attended monthly meetings with his parole officer, Hedrick said. His parole was scheduled to end in January.
Humphreys pleaded guilty in October 1993 to burglary, breaking into a car and stealing another car. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to serve three years, with the remaining seven to be served on probation, according to a spokeswoman for the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.
While on probation in March 1997, Humphreys was arrested and returned to prison for impersonating an Atlanta police officer at the Town Center at Cobb mall in Kennesaw. Arresting officers found that the gun he was openly carrying had been stolen during the 1993 car break-in. His probation was revoked.
The parole board voted in 1998 to conditionally release Humphreys in 2002, 15 months before his sentence was to end. He was released in October 2002 to live with his grandmother.
Humphreys had not violated the conditions of his current parole until he failed to show up for the meeting with his parole officer Friday.
