Monday, February 27, 2012

Ky. sheriff finds more than friends on Facebook; captures two fugitives on run for 4½ years

An Eastern Kentucky sheriff got help from Facebook in finding two fugitives. Jerry Lee Callahan and his wife Rebecca had been on the run for five years after posting bond and being released from jail in Clay County in October 2007. There were arrested in August 2007 on a combination of 20 counts of rape, sexual abuse, sodomy and incest. In Kentucky, a person must be formally charged or indicted within 90 days of arrest, but because this case was complicated with involvement of minors, the indictment wasn't returned until November, Paige Quiggins of WYMT-TV in Hazard reports.

The pair had been chatting with friends on Facebook, which enabled Clay County Sheriff Kevin Johnson and deputies to track Internet-protocol addresses to Victoria County, Texas, where they discovered the fugitives had applied for driver's licenses. Johnson and another official flew to Texas last Wednesday to apprehend the suspects and return them to Clay County. Johnson credits the capture to the use of Facebook. "Even if you are on the run you are going to stay in contact with friends and family, which in the future it is going to be a tool that law enforcement will use and has used and will be continuing to use," he told the Hazard TV station. (Read more)

In another Kentucky town, Maysville, police are using Facebook to help them solve crimes, Wendy Mitchell of the Ledger Independent reports.

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