October 25, 2005 in City

Fugitive Russell nabbed in Ireland after 4 years

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Associated Press photo

A surveillance image released by Garda, the Irish national police, shows Frederick Russell in Dublin. Russell, 27, who used the alias David Carroll, was arrested Sunday at a store where he worked.
(Full-size photo)

Four years ago, Frederick D. Russell took his new passport, cold weather clothes, $1,300 from his father’s bank account and hitched a ride with his father’s protégé to catch an airplane in Calgary, Alberta.

That’s where the trail went cold for the former Washington State University criminal justice graduate student, who faced three counts of vehicular homicide and other charges relating to a 2001 traffic collision and disappeared just days before a pre-trial hearing.

But Sunday – exactly four years after Russell jumped the $5,000 bail that his father had posted – authorities in Ireland arrested him at his job in Dublin. Getting him home to stand trial could take years.

“We are not celebrating until he gets back to the United States,” said Carol LaVerne, Whitman County’s chief criminal deputy prosecutor. “Extradition is a long and tedious process, and not always successful.”

Russell, 27, who had been using the alias “David Caroll,” was working as a security guard at a women’s clothing store called Extrovert Boutique.

An undercover Irish detective had been providing surveillance of Russell since an Irish tipster alerted U.S. authorities in late January, said Mike Kline, U.S. marshal for the Eastern District of Washington.

“The last nine months have been nerve-wracking,” Kline said. “The Marshals Service knew exactly where Frederick Russell was, but could not act on its own in a foreign country. We knew that one leak could have caused Frederick Russell to flee and disappear again.”

Russell picked a country where he could blend in, both with his looks and his demeanor. He found a job that apparently paid him cash under the table without forcing him to pay local taxes, Kline said.

“We think he went, fairly immediately, to Dublin. We have no information to believe there were any other stops, other than short ones, in transit.”

As Irish authorities kept tabs on Russell, Whitman County prosecutors and federal officials started gathering the extensive paperwork needed to extradite him to Pullman.

Finally, after nine months, the Irish detective approached Russell on Sunday at the store, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Scott Malkowski, who speaks with the detective each week about the fugitive.

“Initially, (Russell) spoke a while in an Irish accent,” Malkowski said. The detective told Russell he wanted to check his tattoos, either at the store or down at the station.

Russell said, “OK. It’s me,” Malkowski said.

Kline called the victims’ families after he got news of the arrest.

“I’m pretty happy that he was caught,” said Rich Morrow, whose daughter, Stacy, was killed in the fiery crash for which Russell was charged. “It’s hard to believe that they caught him on the day of his fourth anniversary of running.”

If extradited, Russell would face three counts of vehicular homicide, four counts of vehicular assault, theft and forgery.

Most charges stem from a June 4, 2001, collision on state Highway 270 between Pullman and Moscow, Idaho.

Russell was driving a 1989 Chevrolet Blazer east toward Moscow when he went into the westbound lane in a no-passing zone, according to the Washington State Patrol.

The Blazer sideswiped a westbound 1994 Chevrolet Geo. The Geo driver lost control, crossed the eastbound lane and came to rest in a ditch, according to the WSP report.

The Blazer also lost control but continued east. Branden S. Clements, 22, of Wapato, Wash., was driving a 1978 Cadillac west with six passengers. Clements braked and swerved, but the Blazer struck the Cadillac on the driver’s side, witnesses said.

Three WSU seniors – Clements; Stacy Morrow, 21, of Milton, Wash.; and 21-year-old Ryan Sorensen of Westport, Wash. – were pronounced dead at the scene. Two other passengers suffered serious injuries but survived.

At the hospital after the crash, Russell – who suffered only minor injuries – had a blood-alcohol content of .12 percent. The legal limit is .08 percent.

Then on Oct. 23, 2001, Russell hitched a ride with Bernadette Olson. She was a graduate student at the time, studying under Russell’s father, Greg Russell, a former prosecutor who was head of WSU’s criminal justice program.

In March 2004, Olson pleaded guilty in federal court to lying to investigators about her interactions with Russell. Later that month, Olson resigned from her post as assistant professor of criminal justice and legal studies at the University of West Florida.

“I believe she told us everything she knew, eventually,” Kline said.

Kline said two U.S. marshals visited Greg Russell on Sunday at his home in Jonesboro, Ark. But his son’s live-in girlfriend in Ireland had already called to tell him that his son was in custody, Kline said.

“We’ve had no information that (Greg Russell) had knowledge of his whereabouts,” Kline said.

Two calls by a reporter to Greg Russell’s home in Arkansas, where he is a professor at Arkansas State University, were not returned Monday.

Authorities must now navigate a complex extradition process governed by a treaty between Ireland and the United States, said Deputy U.S. Marshal Tom Hopkins.

The last 18 attempts to extradite suspects have been denied by Irish officials, including a vehicular homicide case out of California, Hopkins said.

After local authorities learned of Russell’s whereabouts, they contacted each witness from the case and had them give sworn statements before judges. Federal authorities couldn’t tell them that they had found Russell, Hopkins said.

“They were simply told that this is what is required by the Whitman County prosecutor’s office to have their case ready to go,” Hopkins said.

Kline added: “All the victims are looking for information, looking for something they can use for closure. It is more difficult when you have to deceive those folks, there are no two ways about it.”

Before January, the Marshals Service chased leads in Alaska and Canada, including one in Alberta, where a police sketch artist was sure she had seen Russell.

“We had deputies travel there to some fairly far reaches to contact this person and he was a fairly good look-alike,” Kline said.

Russell is scheduled to appear today in an Irish court, for an initial hearing.

“If he was released on bail, there is obviously the chance” of Russell fleeing, Kline said. “But I have no indication that he would leave Ireland.

In fact, Kline said, “there is probably every reason for him to stay where he is at.”

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