Rye Triple Murder Suspect Waives Extradition From Oklahoma
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A man suspected of killing three people and setting fire to a home in Colorado said Monday that he wouldn't fight his extradition from Oklahoma, where he was arrested over the weekend after a monthlong search.
Harry Carl Mapps, who is facing charges of first-degree murder and arson, appeared before a district court judge in far eastern Oklahoma's Sequoyah County, about 700 miles from the small southern Colorado town where the crimes occurred.
The 59-year-old waived his extradition rights and agreed to return to Colorado, Assistant District Attorney Stacey Slaughter said. Local jail officials said they couldn't disclose when Mapps would be sent back to Colorado but noted he could be returned at any time.
"He signed a waiver today, so it's already in the process," Sequoyah County Detention Center Supervisor Amber Byfield said after Monday's hearing.
Slaughter said Mapps did not yet have an attorney.
Mapps faces charges in the shooting deaths of Kim and Reggie Tuttle and their adult daughter, Dawn Roderick. Their bodies were found in the Tuttles' home in the small southern Colorado town of Rye, after it was damaged by fire on Nov. 27.
He was arrested Saturday night at a motel in Roland, Okla. A booking photo showed Mapps with a swollen lip and large red patch on his right cheek, but authorities said there had been no struggle during his capture. No other details of his arrest have been released.
The fire at the Tuttles' house was ruled arson. Pueblo County, Colo., Sheriff Kirk Taylor said it was meant to cover up the shootings.
Three days after the fire, deputies said Mapps was their primary suspect. Authorities said he had been living with the Tuttles and was working for a trucking company owned by Reggie Tuttle, 51.
Taylor said money appeared to be the motive for the shootings. Authorities claimed Mapps stole checks made out to one of the victims and cashed them on the day of the fire. He also faces theft, identity theft and forgery charges.
Taylor said Mapps was found using information developed by the U.S. Marshals Service in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. Mapps had lived in Texas. The Marshals Service had issued a fugitive warrant for Mapps and said authorities were searching for him nationwide.
Pueblo County sheriff's investigators arrived in Oklahoma on Sunday and hoped to speak to Mapps, said Lisa Shorter, the sheriff's spokeswoman.
Charles Ahmad of the Marshals Service in Denver said the firearm used to shoot the Tuttles and Roderick had not been recovered, and investigators believed Mapps still had it. Ahmad declined to identify the weapon.
Mapps wasn't armed when he was arrested, but investigators did not know as of late Sunday whether there were any weapons in the motel room or Mapps' vehicle, Ahmad said.
Shorter and Ahmad said they did not yet know where Mapps had been while he was a fugitive. He once worked as a long-distance trucker, and authorities had said he was familiar with little-used back roads.
Friends called the Tuttles generous and caring.
"Kim and Reggie would help anyone who needed it," Winnie Owens, a friend and neighbor, told the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper. "The hearts of everyone in this valley go out to that family."
Kim Tuttle, 55, worked on the culinary staff at Parkview Medical Center in Pueblo.
Roderick, 33, lived in nearby Pueblo and had a husband and three children. Authorities haven't said why she was at her parents' home.
- By Dan Elliott, AP Writer
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