For 77 days after the SC Supreme Court ordered his arrest, fugitive killer Jeroid Price has traveled the country, one step ahead of the FBI and the South Carolina Division of Law Enforcement.
Around April 26, when the Supreme Court ordered his detention, Price, 43, was in South Carolina, according to a law enforcement document.
Then he disappeared.
Price’s movements during the 11 months that local, state and federal agents searched for him were detailed in an FBI complaint filed in federal court. The document was unsealed on Thursday afternoon.
“It is believed that Price then traveled to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and from there took a bus to Atlanta, Georgia. Telephone follow-up then indicated that Price continued from Georgia to the state of New Mexico, specifically Albuquerque,” according to the complaint.
Phone tracking is commonly used by law enforcement to determine the location of a person’s cell phone. Most cell phones transmit global positioning data that can locate their movements.
The manhunt ended Wednesday morning when Price was arrested by the FBI and New York police at a Bronx apartment complex, law enforcement said. According to prison officials, a tip to SC’s Department of Corrections and passed on to the FBI led to his arrest. Whoever tipped is entitled to some $60,000 in reward.
The FBI complaint, secretly authorized on June 7 by South Carolina Federal Magistrate Judge Paige Gossett, charged Price with the “crime of unlawful theft to avoid prosecution while knowingly and voluntarily moving or traveling in interstate commerce or stranger with the intent to avoid custody or confinement. after conviction for a state crime (murder),” the complaint states.
The federal “unlawful theft” charge gave the FBI formal jurisdiction to prosecute Price for a federal crime.
Since mid-April, when 1st Circuit attorney David Pascoe revealed to the media that Price had been released after serving just 19 years of a mandatory 35-year prison sentence, the case has caused “an outcry from on the part of the victim’s family, law enforcement and lawmakers,” the complaint states. Pascoe had sued Price in 2003 and won a murder conviction.
Price was released as part of a secret court agreement between retired state judge Casey Manning, 5th Circuit attorney Byron Gipson and Price’s attorney, State Representative Todd Rutherford, D- Richland.
“This case not only threatens public safety, but also involves public confidence in the justice system and the rule of law,” Gov. Henry McMaster wrote in an April 25 letter to corrections officials. “The early and unsupervised release of this detainee in the circumstances … was apparently against the law and clearly inconsistent with common sense.”
Manning’s order freed Price from prison 16 years early. In 2003, Price – a member of the Bloods gang – was convicted of murdering a college football player at a Columbia nightclub and given a mandatory 35-year prison term.
To arrange Price’s release from prison, Rutherford and Gipson used a little-known procedure to persuade Manning to issue a court order. The procedure allows a judge to suspend an inmate’s sentence if the inmate has assisted law enforcement inside the prison. Rutherford claimed that Price had done just that on several occasions.
But in April, when it became known that Manning had secretly removed nearly half of Price’s sentence, Attorney General Alan Wilson successfully asked the Supreme Court to overturn the order and order that Price be sent back to prison to complete his sentence. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials such as Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said they were shocked. Supreme Court justices at a hearing on April 26 said they were surprised there was no public record of Price’s release.
At the time of Price’s release, he was being held in a New Mexico state prison. South Carolina officials, when asked why Price was moved west, said only: “Price was moved as part of the Interstate Corrections Compact, which is a national agreement between states to house inmates in the situation that best suits them to pass their time. ”
FBI complaint: Price in “hidden”
“Price is aware that law enforcement is seeking to take him into custody and he is actively hiding,” the FBI complaint said. , sworn in on June 7 by FBI agent Kevin Conroy. The complaint has since been sealed.
SLED had actively sought out Price under the direction of the agency’s Lt. Al Stuckey, according to the complaint.
SLED “requested the FBI’s assistance in the investigation, as many of Price’s family and friends, whom they would all like to interview, reside out of state of South Carolina. Price has relatives who live in New York, North Carolina and Georgia,” the complaint states.
“Law enforcement conducted interviews with family members of Price living in New York, North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina,” the complaint states. “None provided information on Price’s whereabouts. Lt. Stuckey also attempted to track multiple cell phones and investigated numerous Crime Stoppers tips related to Price’s whereabouts,” reads the complaint.
A law enforcement source said Thursday night that Price would not fight to be brought back to South Carolina.