Hunt for fugitive continues

by Cherol Sabol
The Daily Interlake

posted August 13, 2005

    The second day of a manhunt for a fugitive in the Flathead Valley ended Friday evening without the capture officials were hoping for.

    Officers weren't too far behind Michael Marvin Dugan, 44, as he reportedly traveled in the area of Whitefish Stage Road and Montana 40, even persuading one resident to let him use her phone Friday.

    The Flathead County Sheriff's Office suspended the search and sent weary officers home Friday night, but kept an extra patrol in the North Valley.

    Dugan allegedly escaped during June with Joshua Hansen, 18, from an Oshkosh, Neb., jail, where Dugan was being held on theft charge. He is wanted now for flight to avoid arrest.

    He and Hansen reportedly have been living near Columbia Falls for about a month. They split up, and Hansen was captured Thursday after a high-speed chase to Glacier Park, where he reportedly crashed a stolen car into a roadblock.

    Dugan has eluded searchers since Thursday morning, when he saw a sheriff's detective looking for him in the Blue Moon bar and fled.

    The FBI also is looking for Dugan, because he allegedly assaulted a corrections officer at the jail and crossed state lines, said Undersheriff Mike Meehan.

    Sheriff Jim Dupont looked for Dugan by helicopter Friday. Deputies, search-and-rescue volunteers and search dogs worked to find him.

    "I think the guy's got to be getting tired and hungry and thirsty," Meehan said. "I think he's desperate.

    "We're quite concerned he's going to steal a car."

    Officials are warning everyone to lock their homes and vehicles and make sure their keys are not in their vehicles.

    An FBI notification about Dugan lists him as armed and dangerous. Local officers haven't confirmed whether he has a weapon, Meehan said.

    They do think "He's running out of options," he said.

    There have been numerous sightings of people who match Dugan's description.

    On Friday morning, one came from Sandy Hill Lane, east of Whitefish Stage Road. Dugan was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, but Friday's reports had him dressed in a dark blue sweatshirt.

    Sheriff's deputy Jordan White said officers believe it was Dugan who asked a woman on Whitefish Stage Road whether he could use her telephone, claiming his vehicle was broken down.

    Marti Kurth said she was reading The Daily Inter Lake online Friday morning. She was checking the lost-and-found listings for her missing cat, and reading an article about Dugan and Hansen.

    "There was a knock at the door," she said.

    She answered the door, flanked by a 150-pound dog, she said. Her husband was also home.

    "A guy was standing on my porch. He said his car was broken down," she said. She handed him her phone to use outside and shut the door.

    He knocked on the door again when he was done, she said.

    "He said, 'Thanks very much,'" she said. "He was friendly. He didn't seem very overtly dangerous."

    Kurth wondered, though, when she looked outside and saw no vehicle.

    Later, deputies arrived, and she still didn't make the connection right away, she said. Then it hit her: "Are you looking for that fugitive?" she asked.

    A detective showed her a picture of Dugan. That's who was at her door, she said.

    The online story about Dugan didn't have his photo, as the newspaper did Friday. If she'd seen that, she would have recognized him, she said.

    White himself saw someone matching Dugan's description in a driveway on north Whitefish Stage Road, but "within seconds, he was gone."

    Search dogs, using an item of clothing that belonged to Dugan, tracked him for more than a mile, Meehan said.

    "The search-and-rescue dogs have been great," he said.

    The dogs and their noses wore out, though, and Dugan's scent disappeared.

    At about 6 p.m., there was a report of someone who looked like Dugan running through a development north of Montana 40, White said.

    After a 15-hour day, including work on other matters, he was ready to go home.

    Dugan, though, has no safe haven or hot meal waiting for him, and Meehan said he thinks that might help officers catch him.

    "He doesn't know where he wants to go. He's going to have to give it up here shortly," Meehan said.

    "We'll have constant patrols in the area all night, over and above our regular patrol," he said Friday.

    Anyone who thinks they have seen Dugan should call the Sheriff's Office at 758-5610. He is described at 5 feet 9 inches tall, and weighs about 150 pounds. He has thinning black hair, hazel eyes, and a scraggly beard or stubble.