Key witness admits to lying about seeing loose killers
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2007 12:00 am
MANILA, Utah - The search for two escaped killers just south of the Wyoming border suffered a setback Thursday when a key witness confessed he lied about being solicited for a ride by the men two days ago, authorities said.
Other witnesses who reported seeing the inmates along the same stretch of U.S. Highway 191 were mistaken, authorities determined. They were believed to have spotted hunters or other people.
"It's kind of scaled things down a bit," said sheriff's Detective Dick Blust Jr. of Sweetwater County, who was in Utah to assist in the manhunt.
The search, however, was shifting to "promising" leads developed Thursday by U.S. marshals, said Blust, who said he couldn't divulge the nature of those leads.
The key witness, a 27-year-old Vernal man, admitted to police Thursday "that he made it all up" and will face criminal charges, Blust said.
He also could be billed for two days authorities spent searching along a stretch of Highway 191. The rugged area is about 35 miles from the Daggett County jail, where the inmates broke out Sunday, and halfway to the oil town of Vernal.
The witness said he was solicited for a ride by two men in jail garb at a rest stop at the historic Stringham Cabin along the highway, where upward of 60 local, state and federal authorities converged for an intensive search.
From the start, the search has involved helicopters with heat-sensing equipment, airplanes and SWAT and dog teams.
Searchers would have spent some time along the highway, one of three roads leading from remote Manila, but the bogus report sapped law enforcement efforts, Blust said.
Authorities are working dual theories that the inmates might still be hiding in the area or could have left the region altogether, he said.
Juan Carlos Diaz-Arevalo, 27, and Danny Martin Gallegos, 49, could be "worn down" by hunger and freezing nighttime temperatures on their fifth day on the loose, he said.
Diaz-Arevelo was convicted of murder and child abuse in 2006. Authorities say Lindsey Fawson, 22, was shot in the face with a sawed-off shotgun in 2005 in Draper, a Salt Lake City suburb.
Gallegos was convicted of aggravated murder in 1991 in Salt Lake County. He pleaded guilty to shooting an 18-year-old woman after hiding in the apartment of an ex-girlfriend. He was denied parole in 2005.
Because of crowding, the two men had been transferred to the jail from the state prison during summer, said Jack Ford, a spokesman for the Utah Department of Corrections.