Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
BRANDON, Miss. (AP) — The Latest on the capture of a Mississippi fugitive in Kansas (all times local):
3:30 p.m.
A convenience store clerk in Kansas is in critical condition after police say he was shot by a fugitive charged with two murders in Mississippi.
Maria Loving, a spokeswoman for Via Christi Hospital in Wichita, says the clerk is in critical condition Wednesday but she could not release the man's name.
Authorities say the man was shot Wednesday in Pratt as officers were searching for 28-year-old Alex Deaton. Pratt Police Sgt. Edward Gimpel said Deaton was being chased in a stolen car when he went into a Kwik Shop, shot the clerk and stole a vehicle. Deaton was later arrested when the vehicle car crashed in Ellsworth County.
Mississippi authorities have charged Deaton in the death last week of his girlfriend and the shooting death of another woman at a rural Mississippi church. He's also suspected of other crimes in Mississippi and New Mexico.
___
2 p.m.
Mississippi authorities are charging a fugitive arrested Wednesday in Kansas with a second murder.
Neshoba County Sheriff Tommy Waddell says he's obtained a warrant to arrest 28-year-old Alex Deaton in the shooting death of 69-year-old Brenda Pinter (PINE'-ter). Waddell says he believes Deaton, also charged in the strangling death of former girlfriend Heather Robinson, shot Pinter Thursday at a rural church south of Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Waddell says video shows a white SUV entering the church parking lot. He says Deaton later sent a text confessing to a murder in a church, and says officials have collected physical evidence including a bullet.
Deaton was captured after Kansas Highway Patrol troopers forced his stolen Cadillac SUV off the road Wednesday, with it flipping and burning in a field. Deaton is jailed in Kansas, and Waddell says Mississippi investigators are on the way there to question him.
___
1:30 p.m.
Police in Kansas say that a Mississippi fugitive shot a convenience store clerk and stole an SUV in the town of Pratt while police were searching for him.
Pratt Police Sgt. Edward Gimpel tells reporters that authorities will seek to criminally charge Alex Deaton in Kansas.
Gimpel says Deaton was being chased by authorities in a white Honda he stole in New Mexico Tuesday when he evaded a roadblock at the edge of Pratt around 4:30 Wednesday morning.
While police kept looking for him, Gimpel says Deaton ran to a Kwik Shop, shot the clerk, and stole a black Cadillac SUV.
Gimpel says the store clerk, whom he didn't name, was flown to a Wichita hospital. Gimpel says he doesn't know the clerk's condition, while Mississippi authorities have said he is in critical condition.
One of the city's trauma hospitals referred questions to law enforcement and the other one told The Associated Press it could provide no information without the clerk's name.
___
Noon
Mississippi authorities say they will seek extradition of a fugitive who left a nearly 2,000-mile trail of violence that ended in a fiery crash Wednesday in central Kansas.
Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey told reporters that Kansas authorities have agreed to hand over 28-year-old Alex Bridges Deaton, who is suspected of strangling his girlfriend last week in a suburb of Mississippi's capital city. Deaton is then believed to have shot a jogger from the SUV he stole from the girlfriend, and officials say he may have also killed a woman at a rural Mississippi church.
Bailey says Deaton sent a series of texts, some incriminating, to friends and family before he went silent Saturday. He resurfaced Tuesday, with New Mexico authorities saying he carjacked and briefly abducted two hikers. Kansas authorities say he shot a store clerk in that state and stole another vehicle, before being captured following a chase.
___
10:45 a.m.
Authorities have arrested a man suspected of shooting a Kansas convenience store clerk and kidnapping two hikers in New Mexico while on the run after his girlfriend was killed and a jogger was shot in Mississippi.
Kansas Highway Patrol trooper Tod Hileman said in a tweet that 28-year-old Alex Bridges Deaton was taken into custody Wednesday near the town of Wilson, about 80 miles from where the clerk was shot.
Kansas authorities began pursuing Deaton because he was driving a vehicle reported stolen in New Mexico. Kansas investigators say the suspect ditched the vehicle before shooting the clerk and stealing another vehicle. Hileman says Deaton was arrested after his vehicle crashed and caught fire.
Authorities were seeking Deaton in the death of 30-year-old Heather Robinson. Mississippi officials also consider him a suspect in the shooting death of a woman found dead at a rural church.
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
