U.S. Marshals, West Virginia law enforcement nab escapee convicted of rape from Arkansas – WV MetroNews

LEWISBURG, W.Va. — U.S. Marshals and West Virginia law enforcement teamed up to catch a man who’s been on the run from authorities since 2022.

Marshals, along with the West Virginia State Police, Lewisburg Police Department and Greenbrier County Sheriff’s Office, arrested Samuel Paul Hartman, 39, at the Quality Inn in Lewisburg, West Virginia on Monday.

“Today’s capture was the result of deliberate and determined law enforcement work,” said Joe Profiri, Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Corrections. “The United States Marshals Service, Arkansas State Police, and the Arkansas Department of Corrections have kept this case on the forefront and followed hundreds of leads over the course of the last year.”

Hartman was an inmate at the East Arkansas Regional Unit. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2013 after being convicted of raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter.

Hartman escaped from the prison facility in Arkansas on August 12, 2022, while on a work detail in a field near the detention facility. On that date, a vehicle approached the work crew and two women got out of the vehicle and fired several shots toward the crew. The women were later identified Misty Hartman, Hartman’s wife, and his mother Linda Annette White.

Hartman got into the vehicle and fled the scene. DOC officers followed the vehicle which was heading to an area short of the Mississippi river. All three people inside the vehicle then got on to two jet skis that were waiting for them.

Law enforcement officers from Mississippi and Arkansas located the abandoned jet skis on the riverbank on the Mississippi side of the river, but did not locate the three individuals.

In March 2023, investigators with the U.S. Marshals Service from the agency’s Cold and Complex Case Unit paired up with investigators from the Eastern District of Arkansas to find the three. Investigators determined that Linda White had ties to the state of West Virginia. Authorities then contacted the Southern District of West Virginia for assistance in the case.

“In my nearly 30 years of law enforcement, I cannot recall a task force that has the level of dedication to accomplishing the mission and making our communities safer than that of CUFFED (Cops United Felony Fugitive Enforcement Division Task Force),” said Michael Baylous, U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of West Virginia. “The apprehension of these dangerous fugitives demonstrates the close and outstanding relationship that CUFFED enjoys with our local and state partners, other USMS Districts, and the USMS Domestic Investigations Branch.”

Hartman’s wife Misty, 39, his mother Linda, 61, and White’s boyfriend Rodney Trent, 52, of Lester, West Virginia were all taken into custody. Both women are alleged to have helped Hartman escape. Trent faces felony charges for allegedly harboring a sex offender and for helping out the three during the escape.