Fugitive child rapist arrested in Texas
Published 10:31 pm Thursday, April 2, 2009
ARLINGTON — A convicted child rapist and high-risk sex offender who cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet last month and fled from an Arlington group home was arrested Thursday near Dallas.
Deputy U.S. marshals captured Eric Eugene Hartwell and put him in handcuffs mid-day Thursday, senior inspector Tom Lanier said.
“We worked diligently to track him,” Lanier said. Lanier helps run a special, newly formed federal task force based in Seattle that hunts high-risk sex offenders.
On March 20, Hartwell, 46, cut off his electronic global positioning system tracking bracelet and disappeared. He took all his belongings and about $1,500, court papers said. Arrest warrants were issued and a nationwide search began to find the 6-foot-2, 200 pound, redhead.
Deputies with the U.S. Marshals fugitive apprehension task force learned he might be staying in Carrollton, Texas, a city near Dallas, Lanier said. They put the fugitive under surveillance and moved in to arrest him Thursday.
After a brief foot chase, Hartwell was back in custody.
Hartwell’s criminal history includes a 1991 conviction for molesting a 6-year-old and the attempted rape of a 15-year-old hitchhiker in 1995.
He has been convicted of failing to register as a sex offender numerous times, court documents show. Police looked for him from October 2002 until his arrest in January 2007 in Orange County, Calif. While on the run that time, Hartwell lived and worked in at least 16 states, possibly as many as 25, officials said.
“Individuals such as Eric Hartwell who repeatedly flaunt sex offender registration laws will be pursued,” said Joe Hawe, U.S. marshal for the western district of Washington.
Hartwell was the second level-3 sex offender in Snohomish County to recently cut off a GPS tracking bracelet. About a year ago, David J. Torrence was ordered by state officials to sleep under a bridge on U.S. 2 near Snohomish. He was found months later in Arkansas after snipping off his bracelet and ditching the device in Lynnwood.
In both cases, tampering with the bracelet signaled quickly to officials that the offender was missing, state Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said.
On Thursday, Hartwell was placed behind bars at the Dallas County Jail.
Now, Hartwell is expected to be returned to Washington where he’s likely to face state and federal charges, Lanier said. He could be prosecuted under the newly implemented law that makes it a federal offense to fail to register and cross state lines.
Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437, jholtz@heraldnet.com
