By Russ Bynum
The Associated Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Authorities say they’ve captured a convicted murderer selling pine straw in rural Georgia 16 years after he escaped a North Carolina prison.
Tommy Long of the U.S. Marshals Service says authorities arrested 49-year-old Manuel Hrneith early Thursday. They say they followed a tip from North Carolina, where authorities say he escaped from prison in May 1995 while serving a sentence for second-degree murder.
Authorities say he’d been living a fairly quiet life in rural Tattnall County, Ga., where he bought a mobile home in 2004. He had his own pine straw business and settled down with a wife and three children.
Capt. Kevin Keyfauver of the Tattnall County Sheriff’s Office says the fugitive has waived extradition back to North Carolina, where he was sentenced to 18 years in 1991.