Nearly 3-month chase ends for Delaware fugitive

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A convicted murderer wanted in a crash that killed a Nebraska 2-year-old was captured in southern Illinois after eluding authorities for nearly three months.

A U.S. Marshals task force arrested Leamond J. Pierce, 53, Monday after locating him at his father's apartment in O'Fallon, Ill. Pierce is awaiting extradition to Nebraska at a jail in St. Clair County, Ill., sheriff's deputy Nicole Liebig said.

Pierce, on parole from Delaware for a 1981 execution-style murder, faces vehicular homicide charges in a Dec. 3, 2011, crash that killed Aidan Curry.

"They got him! Thanks to everyone for all of your kind words and hard work, Leamond Pierce is now in custody," the boy's mother, Jennifer Brock, wrote on her Facebook page, "Catch Leamond Pierce."

In a phone interview Wednesday, Brock said she and her family were eager to have Pierce face charges in Nebraska.

"We're very thankful he is off the street," she said. "We're very thankful to Delaware and to Illinois and the U.S. Marshals for working together and making this happen."

Brock also said she hopes Delaware revokes Pierce's parole and sends him back to prison.

"We're worried that he is going to come up for parole again and given that he's been given five other chances, that he may be given another chance in the future," she said. "We're definitely nervous about that, but we hope that the parole board sees him for what he is: He's a repeat offender, he has no respect for the law and he has really just wasted all of his chances and a lot of resources."

Brock and her family were returning home from posing for their holiday portrait when Pierce, who was working as a tractor trailer driver, rear-ended their car on a snowy Interstate 80 outside Lincoln, Neb. The 2-year-old died at the scene.

Pierce was speeding in the snow at 69 mph, above the speed limit posted for optimal conditions, and did not have permission to be in the Midwest state, according to Delaware authorities. One of the conditions of Pierce's parole was not to leave Delaware without permission

Nebraska officials charged Pierce with vehicular homicide May 31, two days before the 18-month statute of limitations expired. The hunt for Pierce began soon after when Delaware probation and parole officers could not find him.

The U.S. Marshals Service's Delaware office began taking tips on Pierce's whereabouts, and toward the end of last week suspected he was in O'Fallon, about 15 miles east of St. Louis, Deputy U.S. Marshal Jesse Barfelz said.

A deputy marshal went to the apartment where Pierce's father lives to ask some questions, said Don Slazinik, a U.S. Marshal in southern Illinois. "As dumb luck would have it, he was there then."

After radioing for assistance, the deputy was joined by two other deputy marshals and O'Fallon police. Pierce ran from the officers and tried to disguise himself by changing clothing, Slazinik said, but he was cornered before he reached his car.

"It ended up in a wrestling match, a little fight on the ground," Slazinik said. "Then finally one of the O'Fallon officers who was there pulled his Taser and tased him."

No one was injured, Slazinik said.

"We expect to extradite him to Delaware and will work collaboratively with Nebraska authorities to determine which jurisdiction he is extradited to first," said Jason Miller, a spokesman with the Delaware Attorney General's Office.

In Nebraska, Pierce is wanted on a vehicular homicide charge, a misdemeanor that carries up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

The Nebraska charge triggered a new set of violations in Delaware, where Pierce is on parole for the 1981 killing of James Alfred Poon. Poon died after he answered the door at his home, shot with three pointblank bullets to the head and chest. Pierce pleaded guilty to second-degree murder to avoid the death penalty and received a life sentence.

Pierce was paroled in 1995 after serving 13 years of a life sentence. A few years after being released, Delaware probation and parole officers found his compliance lacking.

The first red flag came in July 1999, when Pierce was charged with third-degree assault and failure to comply with a court order to stay away from his then-wife, Dawn Anderson. Although the assault charge was dropped, he was convicted of violating the court order and in July 2000 was sentenced to pay $40 in court fines and one year probation.

A pattern of violating his parole continued, including leaving Delaware for a Caribbean vacation, forging a work document, blowing off meetings with his parole officer and ignoring curfews.

Pierce would be sent back to prison or a work release center for short stretches, totaling nearly 4½ years during an eight-year period that ended in August 2012, a News Journal review of parole record shows.

Once his case and any prison time are completed in Nebraska, Delaware will pick up Pierce to have him face parole violation charges, said David Henderson, chairman of the Delaware Board of Parole.

Partick F. Condon, attorney chief deputy for Lancaster County in Nebraska, said his office was waiting to see if Pierce would waive his extradition to face the Nebraska vehicular homicide charges.