By FELICIA FONSECA, Associated Press Writer

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 3:15 a.m.

ST. JOHNS, Ariz. ?
Handcuffed face down on the ground, Hugh Murray quickly realized who he had been hanging out with for two days at a remote campsite as he overheard law enforcement officials say that a man detained near him was the last of the three.

His mind raced back to a week earlier, when he scanned a newspaper article about three men who escaped from a prison in northwest Arizona and the woman who helped them flee.

“I clicked on that,” Murray, 67, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Monday. “It was unbelievable until then, but then it made sense.”

A SWAT team swarmed the campsite, about an hour’s drive from the small community of Springerville, last Thursday after an alert U.S. Forest Service ranger, investigating what appeared to be an unattended campfire, noticed a Nissan Sentra backed suspiciously into the trees.

The ranger called in the license number, essentially ending the three-week manhunt for John McCluskey and Casslyn Welch. McCluskey was the last of three inmates who escaped July 30 from the state prison in Kingman to be captured. Welch, his fiancee and cousin, was arrested at the same time.

Murray said McCluskey and Welch showed no signs of hostility toward him, never brandished the guns that authorities found when they were captured, made no mention of their recent travels — and certainly gave no indication they were two of America’s most wanted fugitives. Instead, the two were quite pleasant, Murray said.

“I hadn’t a clue they had done anything deadly, until that cop mentioned who they were,” Murray said.

McCluskey and Welch have been charged with murder and carjacking in the deaths of an Oklahoma couple in New Mexico, apparently because they were tired of sleeping in a car and coveted Gary and Linda Haas’ trailer, according to a criminal complaint. They also face charges of kidnapping, aggravated assault and armed robbery in Arizona.

According to the complaint, McCluskey told investigators he fired the shots that killed the Haases and wanted to kill two tractor-trailer drivers who the trio kidnapped in Kingman but was outvoted by Welch and a second escapee, Tracy Province who was arrested Aug. 9 in Wyoming.

Authorities said McCluskey expressed regret at not having killed the forest ranger whose tip led to their capture and said he would have shot officers at the campsite if he could have reached his gun in his tent.

Authorities in Apache County said they believed Murray could have been the next victim.

“A wild guess, they might have offed me for my car and some of my equipment,” Murray said. “Good police work. I’m glad they came in when they did.”

Murray first encountered a tough- and grim-looking McCluskey — the kind of appearance he called typical in the mountainous area — while typing up data Wednesday for field work on the Arizona willow, which he studies as a hobby.

“He was backwards rough, but (turned out) fine,” Murray said.

McCluskey asked for a jack handle to help fix a flat on the beat-up Nissan. Murray hesitated, knowing he’d have to dig through a trunk load of stuff to retrieve it, but relented.

McCluskey returned the jack handle with a smile and a thanks, along with an invite to the couple’s campsite for a hamburger. Murray declined the meal but visited with the couple for about half an hour, then returned to his own camp site, about three-fourths of a mile away.

The fugitives warmed up to Murray when he started talking about what he knows best — nature — and recommended hiking trails. In fact, Murray did much of the talking in the few hours they spent together Wednesday and Thursday.

The trio went out Thursday to gather mushrooms that McCluskey sliced up, seasoned and served in wheat tortillas with cheese.

Murray said he never asked for their names, and they didn’t ask for his.

Murray was unsure when the couple arrived at the campground nestled amid spruce trees at the foot of the Mount Baldy Wilderness in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. McCluskey and Welch set up what appeared to be a fairly new tent in an area designated for those with horses or stock animals.

The campground has no amenities, other than a handful of horse corrals and a toilet. A bend in the nearby road made it impossible for Murray, McCluskey or Welch to see authorities approaching the area as Murray boiled water for a vegetable stew.

“It was a real good job,” Murray said. “They came in really quick.”

After about half an hour, Welch quietly apologized to Murray, saying “Sorry about this bust or mess we got you in,” he recalled.

“I think that apology she gave me was really sincere,” he said. “I know she’s facing a hard life.”

LOS ANGELES

The 57-year-old man charged with 10 murders in the Los Angeles “Grim Sleeper” case was arrested at least 15 times over four decades but was never sent to state prison despite the recommendation of probation officers, court and jail records show.

Lonnie Franklin Jr. was arrested for burglary, car theft, firearms possession and assaults. But his crimes never were considered serious enough to send him to state prison or to warrant his entry in the state’s DNA database, authorities said.

“He’s danced to the raindrops for a long time without getting wet,” Detective Dennis Kilcoyne, head of the task force investigating the killings, told the Los Angeles Times.

Franklin was arrested Wednesday on 10 counts of murder and other charges in the deaths of young black women that started in the 1980s, then suddenly stopped, only to resume again 14 years later ? sparking the nickname Grim Sleeper.

Franklin’s public defender, Regina Laughney, said she’s still reviewing materials in the case and it was too early for her to comment.

One of the victims was killed in July 2003, when records show Franklin should have been in county jail but was released early because of overcrowding.

Franklin pleaded no contest to receiving stolen property in that case, in which he was arrested at a Glendale mall driving a stolen luxury sport utility vehicle.

A probation officer said it was unusual and disturbing that Franklin was still involved in such crimes at age 50, when most criminals have slowed down.

“If at this age the defendant is still engaging in criminal activities,” the officer wrote, “the community can best be served by imposing the maximum time possible in state prison.”

But Franklin received just a fraction of the maximum sentence? 270 days in jail ? and was still released four months early, according to jail data obtained by the Times.

He also narrowly dodged the state DNA database. The following year, all felony convicts were put in the database after California voters passed a measure requiring it.

Despite the long and varied record, Kilcoyne said Franklin did not commit the kind of violent crimes against women that might have drawn the attention of detectives in the Grim Sleeper case.

Investigators now plan to use DNA to tie Franklin to dozens more murders, looking at more than 30 cold case files dating to 1984, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said Friday.

“Now that we know who he is, where he lives, the cars he drove, have people to interview, we will go over all those old cases and look for connections,” Beck said.

Investigators will upload Franklin’s DNA profile into a national database to see if it matches other samples where the DNA had degraded and scientists only were able to get a partial sample, Beck said.

A technique called “familial DNA” led detectives to Franklin. In early June, the state Department of Justice ran DNA from the case through a database of 1.5 million samples.

The database found no identical matches, but did find a “familial” match to a convicted felon whose DNA indicated he was either a brother or the son of the killer. An earlier search in 2008 had found no familial matches, but Franklin’s son was added to the database in recent months for a felony weapons conviction.

An undercover officer pretending to be a waiter in Los Angeles collected tableware, napkins, glasses and pizza crust at a restaurant where Franklin ate, allowing detectives to obtain a DNA match.

Franklin made a first court appearance Thursday on the murder counts as well as one count of attempted murder and special-circumstance allegations of multiple murder that could lead to the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole.

His arraignment was postponed until Aug. 9 at the request of his attorney.

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Associated Press Writer Thomas Watkins contributed to this report.