SEARCH FOR HORRY COUNTY WOMAN INTENSIFIES IN NORTH CAROLINA

The sheriff of Brunswick County says a 911 call came into his department just after midnight Thursday. He says the caller gave an accurate description of the BMW and three people inside the car. We are told those individuals were Chadrick Fulks, Branden Basham and the still-missing Alice Donovan. According to that 911 cal,l the BMW was seen within 5 miles of an Exxon in Winnebow, North Carolina. Authorities are now focusing their search efforts just down the road from that Exxon off Highway 17 on Bee Tree Farm Road. The North Carolina's Highway Patrol helicopter searched from the air, while military-style vehicles and riders on horseback searched in the woods. Authorities are leaving no area untouched. They were also out on boats on the Town Creek River.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2002

Answers

This is from a Myrtle Beach TV station

http://www.wpdetv.com/news/newsstory.asp? article=articles/topnewsstory

Feel free to post elsewhere but please say you saw it at Currents.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2002

I'm very confused. I've been hearing conflicting rumors. Are they possibly multiple victims? Or are some of us overly tired and not hearing reports accurately? I know that happened this morning on TB.

There is some sort of air search going on in Ohio up north of Cols, but I don't know whether it's connected to this case.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2002

I haven't heard of any connection between the escapees and any other missing person. That is not to say there isn't one, but I have scoured news reports and am in touch with my station, of course, and there has been no link thus far that I know of. All I've read about LEOs involved in Alice's case is that they've been searching around SC/NC border, nowhere else.

I've read about the Samantha case in WV media and have seen nothing that connects to the escapees, except that they might have driven through the genemral area when she went missing. Another teenager from the same area as Samantha went missing the following night.

There are also several missing teenagers who were out drinking and never returned. They're all in the Midwest but I suppose whoever is responsible might have moved east. It's only speculation, I don't know.

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2002

Yeah, that makes sense, OG. The only other thing that I'm surprised about is that he was able to get the BMW to Goshen. Perhaps it wasn't losing fluid as fast as was reported or maybe he was about to do some repairs.

Well, keeping my fingers crossed for a good outcome . . .

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2002

From Crystal Waters at TB:

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentuck...ews/4573221.htm

Posted on Thu, Nov. 21, 2002

Woman taken from S.C. parking lot still missing

Associated Press

One of the men accused of kidnapping a woman from a Wal-Mart parking lot in Conway, S.C., a week ago gave a conflicting account about the last time he saw the victim, according to a sworn statement by an FBI agent.

The statement, based on questioning of Branden Basham, 21, was released Thursday during the initial appearance for Chadrick Fulks, 25, in U.S. District Court in South Bend, Ind.

Fulks faces two counts of carjacking and a kidnapping charge filed in federal court in South Carolina.

Fulks swallowed hard when he was told he could face the death penalty if the carjacking or kidnapping resulted in the death of 44-year-old Alice Donovan, who hasn't been seen since a few hours after her abduction.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, more than a hundred deputies and volunteers continued Thursday to scour swampy southeastern North Carolina woods for Donovan.

Authorities think Fulks and Basham may have left Donovan tied to a tree like they did with another victim in Kentucky. But with lows in the areas in the 30s and 40s the past week, they worry they may be running out of time to find Donovan alive.

The affidavit by FBI agent Janet M. Bray said Basham admitted he and Fulks kidnapped Donovan and bound her with duct tape in the back seat. Basham said the woman was duct-taped in the back seat of the BMW, but he gave differing accounts of when it was he had last seen Donovan, the affidavit said.

Surveillance cameras captured Donovan with Fulks and Basham at a convenience store in Shalotte, N.C., about two hours after she was abducted on Nov. 14, Brunswick County, N.C., Sheriff Ronald Hewitt said.

After Fulks bought some gas and drinks, the three were seen heading north on U.S. 17 toward Wilmington, N.C.. Two hours later, the men were spotted back in South Carolina without Donovan, Hewitt said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher A. Nuechterlein told Fulks he most likely will face the charges in South Carolina first but that another hearing would be held Monday. At that hearing, Fulks can challenge whether he should remain in custody and also whether authorities have arrested the right person, Nuechterlein told Fulks.

Fulks can choose whether to have a preliminary hearing on the charges at that time or wait until he gets to South Carolina, Nuechterlein said.

Also on Thursday, Basham was indicted on charges stemming from an alleged attempted carjacking and a shootout with a police officer in Ashland, Ky., prosecutor J. Stewart Schneider said.

Basham is accused of shooting at a police officer while attempting to flee, Schneider said. The robbery charge accuses Basham of attempting to hijack a car at gunpoint at an Ashland mall.

Basham was serving a five-year sentence on forgery charges and Fulks was awaiting trial on robbery charges at the Hopkins County, Ky., jail.

Fulks was quiet and blended in, while Basham had trouble getting along with inmates, jailer Jim Lantrip said. He said Basham was involved in a couple of scuffles.

"Basham was a problematic inmate," Lantrip said. "Not a serious, hardcore troublemaker, but just couldn't get along with people. He was just a young, hyperactive, immature person."

-- Anonymous, November 21, 2002

I believe that there is *possibly* another victim that may be related to this crime spree. A young woman is missing from a town that the two escapees are believed to have been in on the day that she went missing. No physical evidence to link them at this time though. I suspect that is what is confusing everyone.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002

Beckie, are you referring to the WV woman whose car was found burned?

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002

That's the Samantha referred to above.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002

Unaware of crimes, 3 women aided men

By Dave Gustafson and David Klepper The Sun News

Less than a day after Alice Donovan was kidnapped from the Conway Wal- Mart, the two men named as suspects stayed two nights in the Huntington, W.V., home of a childhood friend.

Beth McGuffin, who went to elementary school with suspect Chadrick Fulks, said she had no idea that he and Branden Basham were wanted men when they pulled a blue BMW into her driveway at lunchtime on Nov. 15.

They never mentioned Donovan to McGuffin, and there was no sign of her in their car.

"They said they'd driven through Myrtle Beach and said they were going to Arizona for a bike rally," McGuffin said. "I had no idea what they were up to."

Details that emerged Thursday show that in the 18 days since their escape from a Kentucky jail, the two men relied on help from women who say they were unaware the men were the target of a multistate search.

Two women now stranded in a South Ocean Boulevard motel said Thursday they drove from Indiana to Myrtle Beach with the suspects, with no clue they were on a road trip with two fugitives.

Fulks' ex-girlfriend, Tina Severance, 34, and her roommate Andrea Roddy, 26, both of Portage, Ind., said Fulks and Basham - who gave the first name "Tommy" - arrived at their door a few weeks ago.

The group traveled from Indiana to Myrtle Beach and checked into their motel mid-morning on Thursday.

"Chad laid next to me like there was no care in the world," Severance said.

Fulks told Severance he loved her, then he and Basham said they were going to make a food run in her minivan "and we never saw them again," she said. The FBI has told the women to stay in Myrtle Beach and has impounded Severance's van.

Police say after Basham and Fulks took the van, they broke into a mobile home and shot at a man who interrupted them. Forty-five minutes later, they abducted Donovan before fleeing to West Viriginia, police say.

Wal-Mart security tapes show Donovan was abducted at 2:45 p.m. Nov. 14. She used her cell phone to call her daughter two hours later from Brunswick County, saying nothing about the abduction.

By 1 p.m. Nov. 15, Basham and Fulks had traveled more than 500 miles from Myrtle Beach to McGuffin's West Virginia home.

During the two days they spent there, the men appeared nervous at times, she said, and often spoke in hushed tones in corners of her house. She couldn't hear what, or whom, they were talking about.

"They never said nothing about that woman," she said Thursday.

McGuffin said Fulks and Basham, who told her his name was Tommy Blake, left her home together Sunday afternoon. Fulks returned alone.

Later that night, the lead story on the news was the arrest of a man who tried to carjack two women in nearby Ashland, Ky., before a gunfight with police. Police later identified him as Basham.

"I hit Chad's leg and I said, 'Chad, was that the guy who was just in my house?'" McGuffin said. "He pretended like he was as surprised as I was."

After Basham's arrest, Fulks stayed in Huntington for two more days, leaving Tuesday, McGuffin said. He didn't stay with her Sunday or Monday, but he visited her both days.

Fulks was arrested Wednesday in northern Indiana.

McGuffin said she has been extensively questioned by police and FBI agents. Joe Ciccarelli, supervisory agent at the bureau's Charleston, W.Va., office, would not comment, other than to say his office is participating in the investigation.

McGuffin said she spent most of two days with the fugitives, at one point even driving the BMW to the store for beer.

McGuffin said Basham was "really hyper" and nervous. Fulks, she said, was nervous on Tuesday, the day he left West Virginia.

Severance, who brought Fulks and Basham to Myrtle Beach from Indiana, calls her tale "a stupid love story that turned into a nightmare."

It started 2½ years ago when Severance was a guard at the Westville (Ind.) Correctional Facility and met Fulks, a prisoner at the time.

"Everyone says I need to see 'Raising Arizona,'" Severance said, in reference to a 1987 Coen Brothers movie about an ex-con and an ex-cop falling in love. '"That's you,' they say."

Severance said Fulks became a stand-in father to her 14-year-old daughter, who she says has been placed in protective custody while she's here.

She and Fulks broke up in May, and she heard from him from time to time before he and Basham dropped in.

"He said he loved me, and I was too happy to see him," she said. "I thought he was going to get his life back together. Just those rose- colored glasses of mine, I guess."

Severance said she, her roommate and the two men then decided to take a trip to Myrtle Beach to meet a man named J.D. Then they were going to West Virginia where she and Fulks were to wed and start a new life.

Severance theorizes there are two sides to Fulks, but that she's never seen his bad side.

"He doesn't even cuss," she said.

Severance calls Fulks a "neat freak who showers 500 times a day."

"He's very athletic, very in tune with his body," she said. "You think, 'Wow, this hunk picked me.'"

Fulks and McGuffin knew each other from their early school days in Lincoln County, W.Va. She said he was a good kid who kept in touch with her.

Five months ago, Fulks, his wife, Veronica Evans, and their baby showed up on her doorstep. They stayed a few days.

"I knew he had troubles," she said. "But I had no idea."

On Tuesday, right after Fulks left, she said she saw his picture on the television news.

"I'm still in shock," she said. "This is crazy."

Severance said she feels responsible in some way for the events that have unfolded.

"I pray every day they find that woman," she said. "I'll never forgive myself if she's not OK."

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002

Along with everyone else, I've been praying for Alice's safe return. If the worst has happened, speedy execution is too good for those bastards.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 2002