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Fugitive’s arrest breeds fresh frustration for victim’s father ...... |
Rich Morrow's elation lasted about an hour after he first heard from a U.S. marshal Monday morning.
Even though police took Frederick Russell into custody in Ireland on Sunday, extradition laws make it difficult to transport him back to the United States to be tried for his involvement in a car wreck that killed Morrow's daughter Stacy near Pullman in 2001.
"There's a cloud over this whole thing because you feel like it's not done," Morrow, 55, said Tuesday.
Russell, 27, was charged with vehicular homicide and vehicular assault in that crash. Three people, including Stacy Morrow of Milton, 21, were killed. Three others were injured. After the June 4 crash, Russell's blood alcohol level measured .12, above Washington's legal level of .08.
His attorney failed to get Russell's blood alcohol test thrown out of court in late October 2001, so Russell apparently fled.
In the first two years after the crash, Rich Morrow was in weekly contact with FBI and Washington State Patrol officials, asking for any new information he could report back to the other victims' family. He backed off when information became less and less frequent, he said.
He was depressed and endured many sleepless nights thinking about his daughter and wondering where Russell was.
He moved from Milton, where he had raised Stacy and his son, Tyler, to West Seattle about 21/2 years ago. He lives closer to work and to Tyler, who is studying physics, French and math at the University of Washington.
"I was a little worried about how he was dealing with this," Morrow said of his son, adding, "I never liked it when Stacy was so far away over in Pullman."
He recalls how his daughter, who was a senior at Washington State University when she was killed, loved to fish. In 1988, the pair took a weekend fishing trip near Longview, where she showed off her quick wit and ability to debate, Morrow said.
"I told her she should have been a lawyer," he said. She had, in fact, wanted to teach junior high school.
Since 2002, Morrow has spoken at DUI victims panels in Tacoma and Seattle, telling his story to people who have been ordered to attend the meetings after they were convicted for driving drunk.
Morrow said he's already "kicked into a second gear" after hearing the news of Russell's capture. He's hoping to bolster the case for Russell's extradition by doing interviews with Irish journalists, he said.
He would consider traveling to Dublin, "if for no other reason than to go to the arraignment, look him in the eye and say, ‘Nice try,'" he said.
Morrow said he would tell Russell: "Please stop thinking about what you can do to get away with this and start thinking about what you should do.
"If you're as innocent as you've always claimed you were, then come the hell back here and prove it."
SPOKANE - Longtime fugitive Frederick Russell has finally been captured. But now begins a possibly even more arduous job of extraditing him from Ireland to the United States to face criminal charges in Whitman County.
Ireland has refused most extradition requests from the United States in the past two decades.
"The Irish government is certainly a stickler for procedure," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Hopkins, who is involved in the case. "There are no guarantees."
Russell was arrested Sunday, four years to the day after he fled the United States, at a store in Dublin, Ireland. He reportedly is in an Irish jail.
He faces three charges of vehicular homicide and four counts of vehicular assault. Russell made a court appearance Tuesday to be advised that the U.S. was seeking his extradition, and a bail hearing is scheduled for next Tuesday, said Scott Malkowski of the U.S. Marshals Service in Spokane.
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