PORT ANGELES — New charges have been filed against an Alabama fugitive who was caught near Port Angeles on Saturday.
Dylan Keith Carroll, a convicted arsonist who escaped from a work release center in Alabama last month, was charged in Clallam County Superior Court on Wednesday with first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of a stolen vehicle.
The 24-year-old allegedly stole a 2016 Chevrolet Silverado and a Glock 9 mm semi-automatic handgun after his Sept. 23 escape from the Frank Lee Work Release Center in Deatsville, Ala.
Investigators said he drove from there to Clallam County, a distance of about 2,800 miles.
A relative told authorities that Carroll was at a Forks coffee shop Saturday morning. The woman talked Carroll into giving her the gun, which she then turned over to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, according to court documents filed by the Sheriff’s Office.
Carroll had left the coffee shop before officers arrived, court papers said.
An all-points bulletin was issued Saturday with a description of the stolen pickup.
The wife of an Olympic National Park ranger reported to emergency dispatchers seeing a truck matching the description headed eastbound on U.S. Highway 101 just east of Port Angeles at about noon Saturday.
Clallam County Sheriff’s Sgt. Shaun Minks and Deputy Michael Backes found a pickup with Carroll in the driver’s seat in the southeast corner of the Port Angeles Walmart parking lot, Backes wrote in the affidavit for probable cause.
“The vehicle was backed into a stall where a landscaping bush concealed the Texas licence plate on the rear of the vehicle,” Backes wrote.
Carroll was charged Monday with being a fugitive from justice from another state. An extradition hearing is set for Oct. 14.
Carroll was serving the sentence for setting fire to a hotel in Tallassee, Ala., in 2009, according to The Associated Press.
The owner of the hotel, her husband and their sons had to jump from the burning building, according to reports.
Carroll will be arraigned on his new charges at the extradition hearing.
He is being held in the Clallam County jail on $100,000 bail.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsula dailynews.com.
