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As the search continues for one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives, a strange encounter last year has one woman wondering if the suspect could have been in Utah for a while.
The FBI says Jason Derek Brown may have been in Utah several weeks ago because a friend saw him driving around near the Hogle Zoo. With Brown back in the news, another woman says he may have been here even longer than that.
Melissa Barlow said, "He looked like Sean Penn, and he also had the eerie look with the eyes."
Brown's picture struck Melissa Barlow when she saw it on the FBI's most wanted poster at the post office last year. Two weeks later, she came upon the aftermath of an auto-pedestrian crash near Magna Elementary School. She noticed a man standing by a car. She said the two made eye contact, and there was no mistaking it was Brown.
She says deputies on the scene told her the man was involved in the crash. When she told them he resembled a wanted fugitive, they told her they had his information and there was nothing to indicate that. She also called the FBI's tip line.
Barlow still thinks about that day and a year later is still convinced it was Brown, although that man was not the flashy socialite he's been described to be. "He was worn down looking, somebody who looked like they would have been on the run, had some hard times," Barlow said.
Brown is accused in the shooting death of an armored car guard in Arizona back in 2004. Several weeks before the shooting he bought a handgun and completed a concealed weapon permit course in Utah.
The FBI won't say what kind of car Brown may be driving because it's still an open lead. We also called the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office to get more information on that crash in Magna. They are working on looking up that police report.
E-mail: syi@ksl.com
