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Couple found in Missouri
Parents of woman, 20, feared for her safety
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — A 20-year-old developmentally disabled woman who left the city Feb. 9 with a Megan’s List sex offender has been found unharmed.
A highway patrol officer in Missouri found Gabriella Trayer of Edinburg with Robert Hebb, 44, said Trooper Jeffrey Martin of the Pennsylvania State Police, who have a warrant for his arrest because he failed to register a new address with them.
The pair were stopped in a GMC Blazer that belongs to a tenant at the apartment complex where Hebb was staying on West Washington Street. The tenant often let Hebb drive the car, said Sandi Hause, an acquaintance of both Hebb and Trayer.
When the trooper stopped the pair at 12:42 p.m. Thursday, Trayer told him they were on their way to Las Vegas to get married, Martin said.
The woman’s parents, Joe and Rita Willis, were on their way to pick her up Thursday afternoon.
Hebb was westbound on Interstate 70 in Lafayette County, Mo., when a state trooper pulled him over, said Sgt. Scott Meyer of the Highway Patrol Troop A headquarters in Lees Summit County. He didn’t know the reason for the traffic stop.
The trooper found the Pennsylvania warrant in his computer and also warrants for Hebb from Missouri, where he’s wanted for driving without a license, and from Tennessee, where he’s wanted for not registering his address as a sex offender.
Hebb was living in Clarksville in Montgomery County, Tenn., when he was convicted of violating probation by not reporting his address in 2006, said Jeffrey Morlock, investigator with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department. He spent 90 days in jail. Sometime after his release, he made his way to New Castle.
Morlock said Hebb’s criminal history includes domestic assaults, burglaries, drug arrests and an assault on a peace officer with injuries, in Texas, Missouri and Tennessee.
Missouri will keep Hebb on its warrant. Pennsylvania will extradite him. Martin said he’s not sure when that will happen. Hebb is locked up in the Lafayette County jail.
Trayer’s family and friends said earlier this week they feared for her safety. Hebb, 44, was convicted in 1999 in Dickson County, Tenn., of attempted aggravated sexual battery on a 12-year-old female relative. Trayer, who lived off and on with her parents since turning 18, has the mental development of an 8- to 12-year-old, her mother has said.
Trayer and Hebb knew each other through a drop-in center at Patches Place, which has programs for mentally ill people and a food pantry, clothing store, recreation area and showers for homeless people.
Hebb, who was homeless, frequented the center since its opening on Mill Street in New Castle more than a year ago, said Hause, director of one of the programs there.
Trayer, who’d described herself as living “couch to couch” to the Vindicator in October for a story on homelessness, sometimes stayed with Hause. Hause and her daughter, Angela Hagberg, who also works at Patches Place, tried to look out for her when she wasn’t staying with her parents.
Hause and Hagberg said they discovered early this month that Hebb had cultivated a relationship with Trayer. They were together at a mutual acquaintance’s apartment, Hause said.
Hause went to the state police Feb. 8 about Hebb. She discovered there that he had a history of violent offenses in other states in addition to the sex offense conviction, she said.
Hagberg said she had managed to get Trayer away from Hebb, and she stayed with Hause the weekend of Feb. 6. She went home to Edinburg on Sunday, but on Monday, she got her mother to drive her into New Castle by saying she had a doctor’s appointment. She was aware that Hause had gone to the police.
She went to the City Rescue Mission, where she knew Hebb would be eating lunch. The two left from there, Hause said.
starmack@vindy.com