Police shooting suspect still on run
CANADENSIS (AP) – Authorities hunting for a survivalist suspected of killing a state trooper at a police barracks returned to the thick woods near his parents’ house Saturday to try to further narrow down the search area more than two weeks after the ambush.
State Police Trooper Adam Reed said Saturday investigators had no new details to release on the search for 31-year-old Eric Frein, who’s charged with killing Cpl. Bryon Dickson Sept. 12 and seriously wounding another trooper outside the Blooming Grove barracks.
Authorities said Friday that the hard drive of a computer used by Frein provides evidence he had been planning an attack for years. They said Frein’s Internet searches included sites on how to avoid police manhunts.
Authorities believe they have Frein contained within a 5-square-mile area around his parents’ home in Canadensis. He has been placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
Frein managed to elude hundreds of law enforcement officials looking for him in the heavily wooded region of the Pocono Mountains, taking advantage of the difficult terrain to keep them at bay. He is believed to be armed with at least one high-powered rifle.
“I suspect he wants to have a fight with the state police, but I think that involves hiding and running since that seems to be the way he operates,” State Police Lt. George Bivens said. “I expect that he’ll be hiding and try to take a shot from some distance from a place of concealment, as he has done in the past.”
Underscoring the danger they face as they pursue him, Bivens said Frein experimented with explosives, citing materials police found and interviews with people who knew him. Trackers are proceeding through the woods as though they are booby-trapped, he said. Police also think Frein might have a radio.
A police dog picked up Frein’s scent several days ago and flushed him from his hiding place. But the distance was too great, and Frein was able to get away, the dense canopy providing cover from a police helicopter overhead, Bivens said Friday.
Bivens said he remains confident police will catch their man – “at some point.”