Monday, December 30, 2013

Suspect in 3 Colorado Slayings Captured in Okla.

A month long hunt for a man accused of killing three people in Colorado and then setting a house on fire to cover it up has ended with his capture in Oklahoma.
Harry Carl Mapps, 59, was arrested at a motel in Roland, Okla., on Saturday night, authorities said Sunday.
Mapps faces charges of first-degree murder and arson in the shooting deaths of Kim and Reggie Tuttle and their adult daughter, Dawn Roderick. Their bodies were found in the Tuttles' home in the southern Colorado town of Rye after it was damaged by fire on Nov. 27.
A booking photo showed Mapps with a swollen lip and large red patch on his right cheek, but authorities said there had been no struggle during his capture. No other details of his arrest were released.
Pueblo County, Colo., Sheriff Kirk Taylor said Mapps was found using information developed by the U.S. Marshals Service in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. Mapps had lived in Texas.
The Marshals Service had issued a fugitive warrant for Mapps and said authorities were searching for him nationwide.
It wasn't immediately clear if Mapps had an attorney, and authorities did not yet know if he would fight extradition to Colorado.
The fire at the Tuttles' house was ruled arson, and Taylor said it was meant to cover up the shootings.
Three days after the fire, deputies said Mapps was their primary suspect. Authorities said he had been living with the Tuttles and was working for a trucking company owned by Reggie Tuttle, 51.
Taylor said money appeared to be the motive for the shootings. Authorities claimed Mapps stole checks made out to one of the victims and cashed them on the day of the fire. He also faces theft, identity theft and forgery charges.
Pueblo County sheriff's investigators arrived in Oklahoma Sunday and hoped to speak to Mapps, said Lisa Shorter, the sheriff's spokeswoman.
Mapps wasn't armed when he was arrested, but investigators did not yet know whether there were any weapons in the motel room or Mapps' vehicle, said Charles Ahmad of the Marshals Service in Denver.
Ahmad said the firearm used to shoot the Tuttles and Roderick had not been recovered, and investigators believed Mapps still had it. Ahmad declined to identify the weapon.
Shorter and Ahmad said they did not yet know where Mapps had been while he was a fugitive. He once worked as a long-distance trucker, and authorities had said he was familiar with little-used back roads.
Friends called the Tuttles generous and caring.
"Kim and Reggie would help anyone who needed it," Winnie Owens, a friend and neighbor, told the Pueblo Chieftain. "The hearts of everyone in this valley go out to that family."
Kim Tuttle, 55, worked on the culinary staff at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo.
Roderick, 33, lived in nearby Pueblo and had a husband and three children. Authorities haven't said why she was at her parents' home.
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