The couple who helped authorities capture an escaped Pennsylvania inmate who is suspected of several crimes said they recognized him after his dog alerted them that someone was near their home.
Michael Charles Burham, 34, was taken into custody at 5:50 pm Saturday in Warren County after a weeklong manhunt, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said.
Cindy and Ron Ecklund led authorities to Burham after their dog’s barking alerted them to their presence.
Ron Ecklund said they got into a golf cart and drove to the creek near his property to investigate. “The gentleman stood up and I asked him, ‘So what are you doing?'” Ecklund told NBC News correspondent George Solis. “He replied, ‘I’m camping.'”
Ecklund told his wife, who was outside the golf cart, to get back in the vehicle so he could return to the house.
“We weren’t going to the middle of the yard and I said, ‘Dial 911. I know exactly who it is,'” he said. “I’ve seen the picture of him quite a bit. He’s been all over the news.”
The couple believe they may be eligible for the reward authorities have offered for information on Burham’s whereabouts, which increased to $22,000 on Friday.
FILM EXHAUST
Burham escaped from the Warren County Jail on July 7 by climbing the metal roof racks of the jail yard. He then climbed down using bound sheets, authorities said.
Authorities described him as someone with “survival skills” who was comfortable in the woods for long periods of time. At least 15 federal and local departments had been searching the area for him for eight days.
He was held at gunpoint and will be arraigned on a flight charge, Bivens said.
WHAT CRIMES ARE YOU ACCUSED OF?
Burham was being held in the county on kidnapping and other related charges. He is accused of kidnapping a Warren County couple while he was on the run from authorities in New York, where he is a suspect in the May 11 murder of Kala Hodgkin.
Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said last month that there were no state charges against Burham in the murder case.
He was charged with fleeing to avoid prosecution in the US District Court for Western New York in May. The case was dismissed without prejudice on June 16, according to court records.
A federal criminal complaint says Hodgkin was found shot to death in her home. At the time of her murder, there was an active arrest warrant accusing Burham of raping her, according to the complaint.
As police were driving to Hodgkin’s home, they received a separate call that Burham had allegedly attempted to break into a former girlfriend’s home and then set her car on fire, the complaint states.
Burham went on the run, leading authorities on a multi-state manhunt before he was captured May 24 in South Carolina, the Jamestown Police Department in New York said.
The complaint says Burham kidnapped a couple at gunpoint from their Sheffield, Pennsylvania, home while on the run. They were found alive in a cemetery in North Charleston, South Carolina.
A note in her vehicle purportedly written by Burham told her father that she was “safe for now” and apologized “for all the trouble I caused the family,” according to the complaint.
