Stabbing suspect caught in Wallace
After a week on the run, John Rollins Tuggle came out of the mountains in search of a package of hot dogs early Wednesday and was arrested on charges of attempted murder.
The registered sex offender is accused of repeatedly stabbing his 12-year-old daughter last week and then leaving her in the woods to die. After campers discovered the girl, Shoshone County issued a $10 million warrant for Tuggle and began a widespread search of the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe river basins.
An unassuming graveyard shift clerk at Wallace’s Super-Stop Concoco is being hailed as a hero for helping capture Tuggle.
Sue Boren said she was working alone when a man dressed in full camouflage came into the store just after midnight. It struck the longtime resident as strange that someone would dress like that, since it’s not hunting season.
“He seemed like someone I should take an interest in,” Boren said during a press conference outside the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Department. “I asked if I could help him.”
Though Tuggle looked different than the picture on the wanted posters hanging at the gas station, Boren said he acted suspicious. He told her he wanted a package of hot dogs, but the store didn’t sell them.
Boren tried to make him a deal on some already-cooked hot dogs, but Tuggle wasn’t interested. As soon as he left the station, Boren dialed 911. Police arrested Tuggle without incident a couple of blocks from the gas station.
“I figured that’s got to be the guy because he looked like he just walked out of the woods,” Boren said.
Tuggle was booked into Shoshone County Jail and ate two full plates of food before resting in a solitary cell. Investigators tried to interview the suspect, but Sheriff Chuck Reynalds said Tuggle refused to talk and asked for a lawyer.
On Wednesday afternoon, Tuggle had his first appearance before 1st District Judge Daniel McGee. Wearing an orange jumpsuit and a bullet-proof vest, with his hands and feet chained together, Tuggle walked out of the jail and across the street to the courthouse, flanked on either side by deputies.
Head down, Tuggle walked past onlookers and a throng of news reporters and photographers, up the stairs into the courthouse and up a marble staircase to a small courtroom where McGee read the charge against him.
Reynalds said Tuggle was armed with two large knives at the time of his arrest, but didn’t put up a struggle. Reynalds described him as “unkempt, dirty … really thin and docile.” A beard had begun growing around Tuggle’s thick, silver goatee.
Reynalds said it appears Tuggle, 37, had hiked to Wallace from the spot where his car was found pushed over an embankment on Sunday – off Bullion Creek Road just a mile shy of the Montana border. After the car was found by a Forest Service enforcement officer, Reynalds said he believed Tuggle was somewhere in the wilderness surrounding the Silver Valley.
He said Tuggle had told his parents that someday he wanted to live off the land in North Idaho.
Although he was supposedly armed with a compound bow and razor-edge arrows and had a fishing pole, Reynalds said Tuggle told authorities that he hadn’t eaten in the three days leading up to his arrest.
“So much for living in the wilds of North Idaho,” Reynalds said. “Apparently he’s not as proficient as he thought he was.”
It’s alleged that Tuggle stabbed his daughter repeatedly in the neck, chest and groin, and abandoned her – and that the crime was premeditated. A preliminary hearing, in which evidence to support the charge will be introduced, will be held within 14 days.
He faces a maximum 15-year sentence in state prison.
Before Wednesday’s court appearance, Tuggle was taken to Shoshone Medical Center for DNA testing. Results from those tests might lead to additional charges.
According to court records, Tuggle’s daughter said she was sexually assaulted before her father allegedly took her into the brush near Lost Creek and stabbed her several times. Until the DNA results are back, Reynalds said he couldn’t confirm that report.
The girl is at Sacred Heart Medical Center and is in satisfactory condition.
Her family issued a statement after Tuggle’s arrest, thanking law enforcement and volunteers who helped bring him to justice.
“This has been a very difficult time for (the victim) and our family,” the statement said. “We have been struggling with why someone would commit such a violent act upon one of their own children or anyone else.”
They thanked the public “for their tips of information, prayers and thoughts of kindness during this time of grief.”
News that an armed convict was on the loose in the mountains surrounding the Silver Valley kept some campers at home at a time when they’d ordinarily be enjoying the outdoors.
“I wouldn’t want to run into him up there,” Kellogg’s Joe Cody said. “You never know. He could hit you over the head and steal your car.”
Anne Willis said she felt safe knowing Tuggle was behind bars. She said her boyfriend suggested to her on Tuesday that she start locking the doors at her home – something she’d never done in the eight years she’s lived in Wallace.
In honor of Boren, whom they have know for several years, Willis and her daughter, Katie Jenkins, pasted signs in the windows of their brown van, one of which read, “Sue Has Always Been Our Hero.”
Willis described Boren as so tough that she could “take down a bear.” If Boren had been forced, Willis said, she might have taken down Tuggle, too.
Pam Maravilla, manager of the Conoco, said she usually gets a wake-up call from Boren before Maravilla’s shift. On Wednesday, the call came earlier than usual.
“She said, ‘I got him!’ ” Maravilla said. “I figured she was bored, playing a joke.”
The sheriff gave Boren a hug before she took questions from reporters. She wore her red uniform jacket and a silver star sticker that looked like a badge – a gift from the sheriff’s department. Reynalds said Boren had been “deputized.”
Wallace Mayor Ron Garitone, standing outside the courthouse with a cup of coffee, said he was proud of “little Sue from the gas station.”