State prison escapee found at N. C. motel

He’s in custody after 3 months on run

An Arkansas prison escapee was captured early Tuesday morning by U. S. marshals in North Carolina.

Robert Eugene Woodward, 46, was leaving a Quality Inn in Flat Rock, N. C., shortly after midnight when he was apprehended, according to a news release from the U. S. Marshals Service.

Based on information from the Marshals Service’s Eastern Arkansas Fugitive Task Force, a stolen vehicle connected to Woodward was located in the motel parking lot, displaying a stolen license plate, according to the release.

Woodward was wanted on about 34 felony warrants in North Carolina, according to reports. The charges include larceny, obtaining property by false pretense, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and identity theft.

Woodward had been on the run for three months.

He was clearing a ditch with a prison work crew near the Delta Regional Unit in Dermott on June 20 when he ran into a cornfield, said Solomon Graves, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Correction.

Woodward made his way to a gas station, where he stole a white 2003 Ford F- 250 pickup that was hauling a green John Deere lawn tractor, according to reports.

Graves said the Marshals Service had received reports that Woodward was in his home state of North Carolina. He was apprehended by the agency’s Violent Offender Task Force out of Asheville, N. C., and officers from the Henderson County sheriff ’ s office and Hendersonville Police Department.

Woodward was wanted on 15 felony warrants in five states when a Jan. 17 traffic stop in Little Rock landed him in an Arkansas prison.

About 9 a. m. that day, a state trooper stopped a Dodge

pickup that was swerving in and out of the eastbound lanes of Interstate 30 near the Arch Street overpass, according to a news release at the time from the state police.

While the trooper was checking Woodward’s driver’s license, Woodward fled in his pickup, entering the Interstate 440 interchange, then driving for a while in the oncoming traffic lanes before taking the I- 30 ramp westbound, back to where the pursuit began.

Attempts to stop Woodward’s vehicle with “immobilization techniques” failed, so troopers rammed the pickup and shot out a tire.

Woodward stopped, but he refused to get out of the

pickup. He later complied when a Little Rock Police Department dog approached the vehicle.

According to Pulaski County Circuit Court records, Trooper Gabriel Monroe was the arresting officer. Investigators reportedly found a gun in Woodward’s vehicle.

On Feb. 22, Woodward pleaded guilty to felony fleeing and being a habitual offender. He was sentenced March 1 to eight years in prison.

Woodward was incarcerated at the Delta Regional Unit on March 3.

He has a felony criminal record dating to 1992 in North Carolina.