Man wanted in elderly Ohio pair's slayings nabbed in Arizona

CLEVELAND (AP) — A man wanted in the killings of an elderly Ohio couple and suspected of committing armed robberies in three states fled from sheriff's deputies in Arizona before being arrested early today after a nationwide manhunt, authorities said.

The FBI had issued a federal warrant for 29-year-old Robert Clark in the abduction and slayings last month of 88-year-old Doyle Chumney and his 79-year-old wife, Lillian, in Strasburg, Ohio, and the robberies of stores in West Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia last weekend. The FBI posted a $20,000 reward for information leading to Clark's capture.

The Mohave County sheriff's office said today that Clark sped away from deputies after midnight today when they tried to stop his van on Interstate 40 near Kingman, Arizona. The sheriff's office had received a bulletin Wednesday to look out for Clark, his van and two companions suspected of also being involved in the robberies.

Deputies pursued the van for about 30 minutes into Kingman and then into a sparsely populated area where Clark pulled onto a dirt road and the van got stuck in sand, said Mohave County Sheriff Jim McCabe. The three fled into the desert.

Clark and 26-year-old Tabatha Hazel were quickly captured.