Fugitive arrested on rape charge

The man is the brother of a woman charged in a Greenville, Pa., homicide.

STAFF REPORT

Officers with the U.S. Marshals Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force in Trumbull County have arrested former Hartford Township man Brandon Weaver, a member of the Army stationed at Fort Stewart, Ga.

Arrest warrants were filed Monday in Liberty County, Ga., charging Weaver with two counts of aggravated rape involving victims ages 14 and 17.

Weaver, 24, is also accused of stealing a vehicle from a fellow soldier Monday after becoming aware of the charges against him, according to a press release from the U.S. Marshals office in Cleveland.

Officials became aware that Weaver had come to the Warren area Tuesday, causing the task force to begin an investigation into his whereabouts.

Members of the task force eventually found Weaver in the sleeper cab of a semi-tractor trailer being driven by a family member. The arrest took place in Cuyahoga Heights just after the truck made a pickup there. Weaver was taken into custody without incident.

He is being held in the Cuyahoga County Jail pending extradition to Georgia. Task force members in Trumbull County also located the stolen vehicle, and it was towed for safe keeping.

An investigation into family members who may have aided Weaver while he was a fugitive is ongoing, and officers anticipate filing charges on them in the near future, the press release said.

Weaver is the brother of Krystle Weaver, 20, of Bushnell-Campbell Road, Fowler Township, who is charged in the killing of Thomas Lorigan, 44, of Jamestown, Pa., and wounding Heather Turk at Turk’s Greenville, Pa. apartment May 20.

Her alleged accomplice in the crimes, Ronald Machado, 20, also of the Bushnell-Campbell Road address, was found dead in his Trumbull County Jail cell by hanging after his arrest on the charges from Greenville.