East Valley suspects top most wanted lists

Bobby Kennedy slammed the door when he saw the U.S. Marshals coming toward his Lawton, Okla., home March 18. Kennedy, a former teacher at Morningstar Academy in Apache Junction charged with molesting students, was wanted for skipping bail in 2005.

Kennedy wouldn't come out, so the marshals broke down his door and got him without a fight.

"For some reason people think we're just going to go away," said deputy U.S. Marshal Matt Hershey, who tracked Kennedy for two years.

The police don't go away and fugitives aren't forgotten, no matter how well they disappear.

A few like Kennedy even crack the most wanted lists created by local and federal agencies who have imitated the most famous one of all: The FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.

Police departments in Apache Junction, Chandler and Mesa keep such lists.

The lists, posted on Web sites of the agencies, are simply modern versions of the wanted flier, a police tool that has been around as long as there have been cops and robbers.

View the Mesa list, Chandler list, Apache Junction list. 

Scant research has been done on the effectiveness of the lists, but a 2005 study of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted by University of Chicago law professor Thomas J. Miles suggests that wanted posters have a significant impact on catching fugitives, but good old-fashioned police work has the biggest impact.

Of the 434 fugitives arrested between the list's inception in 1950 and Miles' study, 30 percent came from a specific tip from the public while 53 percent came from investigative work.

The remaining captures came from fugitives surrendering or getting arrested while committing another crime.

"If you're on the list, there's a high percentage you're going to get caught," said Special Agent Manuel Johnson, FBI Phoenix Field Division spokesman. "I think the statistics bear that out."

LOCAL LISTS

Kennedy's March 18 arrest effectively scratched him off the Apache Junction Police Department's Most Wanted list, but his mugshot remained on the Web site Friday.

The department is one of three in the East Valley that maintains a publicized list and several federal agencies keep one.

Fugitives are placed on Chandler's list on a "rotational basis," and at the request of detectives who are working the cases, said Detective Frank Mendoza, department spokesman.

"Each case is looked at on an individual basis," Mendoza said.

The Web site combines surveillance photos and composite sketches of unknown criminals along with mugshots of men wanted in three slayings.

The Mesa Police Department puts the administration of its Most Wanted program in writing and dedicates a detective to running it.

The mugshots include people wanted on various warrants and suspects wanted in connection with rape, robbery, aggravated assault and homicide.

The detective is responsible for returning calls and e-mails to tipsters, developing the Most Wanted list and meeting with other detectives and law enforcement agencies to collect and pass on information.

Scottsdale and Tempe police departments prefer to keep their most wanted lists an internal matter.

Brandon Banks, Tempe police spokesman, said the department's top crime analyst and property crimes detectives meet monthly to develop the list from suspects in their "Attempt to Locate" file.

The list, which consists of fugitives wanted in property crimes, is then posted on the department's intranet.

Scottsdale's list is known as The Top Five, said Sgt. Mark Clark, the department's spokesman.

Detectives from all units of the department also meet monthly to discuss crime trends and develop the list.

The people who comprise it are typically career criminals whose crimes are associated with identity theft or drugs.

"There's a small percentage of people responsible for a majority of the crimes," Clark said. "We target them and whenever we get a Top Five arrest, it usually affects our crime rate," Clark said.

He said Top Five criminals become a priority for the department.

"With limited resources you want to use your resources to target prolific criminals," Clark said.

Scottsdale's most wanted man also happens to be on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

Robert Fisher made the FBI's list in June 2002, a little more than a year after he is suspected of killing his wife and children, dousing their bodies with gasoline and rigging his home to explode.

The FBI's Phoenix Field Office has two men, including Fisher, on the agency's Most Wanted list.

Jason Derek Brown is the list's most recent addition as of Dec. 8, 2007.

Authorities believe he fired five shots into the face of an armored guard who was picking up $56,000 in receipts Nov. 29, 2004 from the AMC 24 Theater, 4915 E. Ray Road.

Johnson said it is not uncommon for two current fugitives from the same field office to be on the list.

"What is uncommon about it is they come off the same squad," Johnson said.

BASIC INVESTIGATIONS

Kennedy didn't make the U.S. Marshal's 15 Most Wanted, but he did make the agency's "major case" list, which is just below the 15 Most Wanted, Hershey said.

Kennedy's presence on the Apache Junction Most Wanted Web site generated tips, but none of them panned out.

Hershey said he and other investigators just continued to work leads and finally got a tip - not generated by the wanted poster - that led them to Oklahoma.

Detective David Ramer, a Chandler police spokesman who worked in the domestic violence unit for 2 years, said he never used the Most Wanted site when he hit a dead end in finding a suspect.

He turned to the department's Criminal Apprehension Unit. The unit's sole purpose is finding people and they'll do it for crimes including robbery and homicide.

Ramer said a caseload can limit the time a detective can spend tracking down one person.

The unit is highly effective. Sometimes it takes a month to find the fugitive and sometimes Ramer would get a call within an hour of his request.

"They would come back and say, 'hey, we got him,'" Ramer said.