FBI agents apprehend child Molester, Edward Harper after 15 years (Scarry Mug)

[Whisper]

updated 1 hour, 25 minutes agoWASHAKIE COUNTY, Wyoming (CNN)

-- Federal agents have apprehended Edward Eugene Harper, who is on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, an FBI official said Thursday.

Edward Eugene Harper, 63, is wanted for alleged sexual behavior with two girls, ages 3 and 8.
Harper, 63, is wanted for alleged sexual behavior with two girls, ages 3 and 8, in Mississippi more than a decade ago, the FBI said.

The FBI said it received a telephone tip in June at the Denver office regarding Harper, and brought a SWAT team and a hostage negotiation team to apprehend him in rural Wyoming on Thursday.

He surrendered without incident, the FBI said, and later admitted his identity to agents.

The agency said he had been working as a sheep herder and had been living in a camper in Washakie County.

He was indicted in April 1994 with conspiracy to commit sexual battery, fondling a child and sexual battery.

He failed to appear for a scheduled court hearing and a state warrant was issued for his arrest in October 1994. He was later charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, a federal offense. The FBI added him to its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list last year.

Before living in Mississippi, Harper had been a ranch hand, working with cattle and sheep in Montana and Wyoming, the FBI said in its release on Harper last year. He has also worked as a truck driver, the agency said.

According to the FBI, Harper subscribed to "sovereign citizen" ideology and claimed to be a member of the Montana Freemen, a group that rejected the authority of the U.S. government. The group became famous for an 81-day standoff with federal agents in Montana in 1996.

But after the arrest and conviction of many of its members, the group essentially disintegrated, according to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"As far as I know," they don't exist, he said. "Most of them went to prison and there was nothing left."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/23/wyoming.fugitive.caught/index.html

 

[Tazzzz]

Dude looks like a one eyed Yeti
Wonder if one of his Ewe, poked his eye out???

The agency said he had been working as a sheep herder and had been living in a camper in Washakie County.

Before living in Mississippi, Harper had been a ranch hand, working with cattle and sheep in Montana and Wyoming, the FBI said in its release on Harper last year. He has also worked as a truck driver, the agency said.

Edward Eugene Harper, 63,( Current Mug!!)

Edward Eugene Harper, 63,( Before Mug!!)

 

[Just my luck sucks]

working as a sheep herder

Those poor sheep!:sheep:

Montana where men are men, and sheep run scared.

 

[Whisper]

I guess its true ,you can run but you cant hide forever

 

[Ninja0980]

He looks to be in really poor health. If he insists on taking it to trial, I hope he croaks before that.

 

[dmax]

Harper, 63, is wanted for alleged sexual behavior with two girls, ages 3 and 8, in Mississippi more than a decade ago, the FBI said.

The agency said he had been working as a sheep herder and had been living in a camper in Washakie County.

I wonder if he's committed any other acts of pedophilia in the last decade. And if not, I wonder if it was because of the outstanding warrant or, because he became a sheep herder. Maybe, all pedophiles should be sentenced to herding sheep.

 

[MadeaBecBec]

Although, I haven't been to Montana in a while, I never would've recognized this pedo had I come across him and I have his photo in my "Wanted" file.. I have sent e-mails to the Department of Justice suggesting that they do age progressions on ALL the Most Wanted, in various ways, such as beards, bald, long hair,etc. and I've seen some that the FBI has done, but not on all of them.
Harper was supposed to have relatives in my State, so I was on alert...
Here's his age progression and poster:

He had a wife when he was first arrested (given bond) I wonder where she is now.....

Truly, I hope the victims help put him away, until he dies.....

 

[evervigilant]

He looks like a child molester and a sheep shagger . :sheep:

 

[Tazzzz]

I wonder if he's committed any other acts of pedophilia in the last decade. And if not, I wonder if it was because of the outstanding warrant or, because he became a sheep herder. Maybe, all pedophiles should be sentenced to herding sheep.

Well I am sure he just found a different kind of "kid" to molest.:sheep:

 

[Whisper]

FBI ruse leads to arrest of most-wanted suspect updated 55 minutes ago WASHAKIE COUNTY, Wyoming(CNN) --

In the predawn darkness the agents switch the federal plates on their vehicles to local Wyoming tags and check they have no other signs showing they are from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.


Edward Eugene Harper is believed to have lived a nomadic lifestyle since fleeing Mississippi.

1 of 2 They want to give the impression that they are fish and wildlife officers, certainly not what they really are -- an elite squad in search of one of the FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives.

Their target lives eight miles up a dirt road in the Big Horn mountains of Washakie County -- and he is also not what he seems.

For the past few years Edward Eugene Harper has been tending a flock of sheep in the semi-wilderness of the region. But 15 years ago he failed to turn up for a court appearance in Mississippi on charges he had molested two girls, aged 3 and 8. He'd been on the lam ever since.

Recently the FBI had received a tip on his whereabouts. Watch how FBI planned hunt for fugitive »

Snipers spent the night watching the truck with a camper top where Harper, 63, has been sleeping for the past few weeks.

Michael Rankin, assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's Denver, Colorado, field office and leader of the operation to capture Harper, said he wanted to use a ruse to get close to Harper.

"We don't want to alert him or anybody who might be a supporter of his, and we want to get as close to him without somehow raising his antenna that we may be law enforcement and we may be wanting to take him into custody," Rankin said.

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"It's an individual that has been a fugitive for almost 15 years, so he certainly doesn't want to go to jail or be put into the system after being on the lam for this length of time."

The locals are used to seeing officers from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and it's one of their men who will make the first contact and perhaps lead Harper to think the accompanying agents are also wildlife officials.

The sun is up now and it is dusty and hot. At the end of the dirt road the FBI has officers working the command and control element, a team of crisis negotiators and investigators who will confirm Harper's identity, and a tactical unit aiming to make the arrest.

FBI sources say they are concerned about another "Ruby Ridge incident." In August 1992, more than 400 members of federal and local law enforcement and the military converged on the Idaho hillside where a white separatist, Randy Weaver, lived in a cabin with his family. By the end of the operation, there had been a 12-day siege and a U.S. marshal, Weaver's wife and his 14-year-old son were dead.

Ruby Ridge became a rallying cry for right-wing militias, and agents do not want this arrest mission spiraling out of control. Harper subscribes to "sovereign citizen" ideology and once claimed to be a member of the Montana Freemen, a group that rejected the authority of the U.S. government, the FBI said.

In the end, the arrest of Harper is nothing like Ruby Ridge. He puts up no resistance, no shots are fired and there is no standoff.


Harper, now with a heavy beard, shaggy hair and wearing a black patch on his left eye, sits calmly in a government SUV heading back into the system and a county jail in Casper, Wyoming, as authorities begin the process of extraditing him to Mississippi. He has requested a public defender.

"It feels very good that everybody's safe," Rankin said as the teams leave the wilderness to head back to base where they can strike a name of their most wanted list

.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/07/27/fbi.manhunt/index.html

 

[Ninja0980]

Two Top Tenners in the same week... not too shabby

 

[Whisper]

I know ITS GREAT EH??

 

[Dakota]

I imagine this is him counting off reasons he should not be found guilty. Maybe the caption on it should say "Number Two reason is that I don't want to play in Bubba's pirate fantasy." Aye, aye, Bubba!

Edward Eugene Harper, the man who spent 15 years on the run after he was accused of molesting two young girls, who were 3 and 8 at the time, was found guilty of the charges that could send him to prison for life.
[...]

One of the victims, Christin Helms, who is now 20, spoke to the media shortly after the verdict. "I am overwhelmed and so happy that this is over," said Helms, who is a stay-at-home mom in Oxford. "I have a beautiful daughter and what this man did to me did not ruin my life. I can now put this out of my head and move on."

Helms was 3 years old in 1993 when Harper was accused of molesting her and an 8-year-old girl when they were all neighbors in the Hernando Point mobile home park in the city.
[...]

Harper, 64, testified Tuesday that he never touched the girls, and he fled because he feared that he would not receive a fair trial by the then judge in the case.

"Did you in any way harm those girls?" his court-appointed attorney, Jack Jones, asked Harper on the witness stand.

"No sir," Harper replied.

But his ex-wife, Debra Busby, told a different story about what happened in late 1993 and 1994. Busby, who was 18 at the time, said she saw her then-husband, molest the girls several times inside their mobile home and once inside their car where he forced the 8-year-old to perform oral sex on him.

She admitted that her husband forced her to also participate in the molestation of Christin Helms.

"I did mess with Christin," Busby said. "But he forced me, and told me if I didn't he would kill me and my family."

For testifying against her former husband, Busby pleaded guilty to sexual battery after her 1994 arrest.

She served six months in prison and received 15 years' probation that have ended.

Jones and Harper's other attorney, Jack Watson, said Busby lied about the molestation to get out of going to jail for 35 years. They said the prosecution had no physical evidence to prove the crimes occurred, and Harper fled because he didn't want to be convicted of crimes he didn't commit.

But Dist. Atty. John Champion said hearing the same testimony from the different witnesses convinced the jurors. "You had all these different people saying that they saw this man abuse these young girls. The truth won out," he said. "I have been on this case for 17 years, and I am overjoyed that these young women and their families get some closure."

Champion said Harper could be sentenced to 200 years in prison if he receives the maximum sentence on all 10 counts against him: sexual battery, fondling, conspiracy to commit sexual battery and attempted sexual battery charges.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/oct/20/longtime-fugitive-found-guilty/

 

[CplPunishment]

Well you can look at his before photo and tell he is a skeevy perv. Life on the lam is a pun that the FBI used anyone get that?

Why don't sheep herders robes have zippers? Sheep can hear a zipper a mile away!
:sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep:

 

[Dreamnine]

Vile fucker... I'm glad justice caught up with him.