Suspect Has Midwest Roots, Long Record

Self-proclaimed racist Faron Lovelace, 39, worked his way up to a capital murder in North Idaho from a Louisiana burglary and theft conviction at age 17.

In between, federal prison records show, Lovelace has spent much of his time in prison.

His first conviction - in Vernon Parish, La. - occurred about the time he dropped out as a junior at Hempstead High School in Dubuque, Iowa. He later earned a general equivalency diploma.

Lovelace was born in Jacksonville, Ill., and moved to Dubuque with his family in 1966 when he was 9.

He was first sent to the Iowa State Reformatory in 1975 when his probation on the burglary and theft conviction was revoked. Lovelace escaped in February 1981 and stole a car in Dubuque, adding a year to his sentence when he was caught.

Before he was caught, though, Lovelace also got himself a 20-year federal sentence for robbing $742 from the Dubuque Bank and Trust Co. with another man.

Federal prison officials paroled him to his parents in Dubuque in May 1988, but he was arrested three months later for robbing a store in Madison, Wis. Records show he was drunk and armed with a long-barreled revolver and a sawed-off shotgun.

After his release from a Wisconsin prison, Lovelace was sent back to federal prison in April 1993 for violating his parole. He was paroled again in August 1994 from a federal prison at Florence, Colo.

Lovelace quickly absconded from his parole officer. He remained at large until Aug. 18, when federal and local lawmen arrested him near the squatter’s camp where he was living at Priest Lake in North Idaho.

Authorities say Lovelace soon confessed to several crimes in this region, including the July 1995 murder of 24-year-old Jeremy C. Scott in the Priest Lake area. He also is a suspect in two robbery-kidnappings in northeast Washington.

, DataTimes