THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 9, 1994 TAG: 9408090375
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
The brother of an inmate who escaped from Central Prison said he's doubtful that the escapee can be caught, especially after a scheme to trap him last week in West Virginia failed.
``Even the sheriff down here says they'll have a hell of a time catching him,'' said Charlie Stromer, brother of convicted rapist James Stromer.
Charlie Stromer said police hoped a money order linked to the escapee under a known alias would lead them to his whereabouts.
The 48-year-old fugitive has talked to his 55-year-old brother in Iowa three times since he escaped in a garbage truck with convicted murderer Thomas Lee Bonney on July 29. Bonney was captured last week in Virginia.
James Stromer last called on Tuesday, and his older brother said the former East Carolina University instructor should stay away from his former Iowa home if he has any sense.
``He's got a good education - he just blown it,'' Charlie Stromer told The News & Observer of Raleigh in an interview in Wapello, Iowa. ``If he uses his education, he's long gone out of this country.''
James Stromer called his brother from an unknown location the afternoon of July 31, two days after the escape. The prisoner bragged that he had broken out of the maximum-security prison in a scheme planned well in advance.
Charlie Stromer, who lives about 130 miles east of Des Moines, said he hadn't heard from his brother in a long time and didn't know he was serving a life sentence on two rapes committed in Greenville.
The fugitive asked for money, so Charlie Stromer led him on and called Central Prison Warden James French.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and Iowa authorities devised a plan in which a $100 money order would be sent through Western Union. The prisoner asked the money order be sent in the name Ed Skinner, his brother said. Regardless of where he was, picking up the money would create a trail.
The prisoner called again on Monday and Tuesday. He told his brother's wife he was calling from South Carolina in a town called Beckley.
Charlie Stromer said investigators told him the call was from Beckley, W.Va., where later that day he went to a Kroger grocery store and asked for the money order in Ed Skinner's name. The SBI and Beckley police later confirmed that Stromer was seen in that town Tuesday.
But Stromer apparently thought the clerk was acting strangely and left before collecting his $100, his brother said. Stromer hasn't been seen since, and he hasn't picked up the money, he said.
Charlie Stromer is worried that if agents used the alias on a flier they distributed they would tip off the fugitive that he and his wife are cooperating with authorities.
People who know the prisoner in southeastern Iowa are keeping a fearful watch for Stromer, who may be headed to the Midwest.
Stromer was tried twice in 1988 in a sexual-assault case in the town of Muscatine, Iowa. Both trials ended in deadlocked juries.
Pitt County District Attorney Joe Blick said last week that Stromer drew up a hit list of people he would kill if he ever got out of prison. Blick said Stromer mailed such a list to one of his daughters.
Stromer's ex-wife, Judy, last week said she is probably at the top of the list. The woman and a daughter, who both live in Iowa, are in hiding.
KEYWORDS: PRISON ESCAPE
by CNB