SEXUAL PREDATOR CAPTURED AFTER INTENSE MANHUNT

James M. Wahlrab, United States Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio announces the arrest of Kenneth Belcher. Belcher was wanted by the Miami County Sheriffs Office for failure to register as a sexual offender and by the Ohio Adult Parole Authority for escape and violation of his state parole. Belcher was on parole in Ohio due to an original charge of Rape. In August 2000, Belcher was employed with a traveling carnival in Troy, Ohio when he convinced a 15 year old girl to accompany him into a vehicle. Once Belcher got the young girl inside the vehicle, he raped her - oblivious to the continuous pleas and screams from the girl for him to stop. At one point, Belcher told her “it will be done in a minute.” After the completion of his prison sentence, Belcher was informed of his requirement to register as a sexual offender. Belcher informed the correctional staff that he had no plans to comply with the registration requirements and immediately disappeared upon his release from custody. On 02/01/2006, Belcher was arrested for failure to register as a sexual offender. Upon his release from that incarceration, Belcher again refused to comply with the sexual offender registration laws and worse, again disappeared. The Miami County Sheriffs Office contacted the United States Marshals Service and requested assistance in locating and capturing Belcher. Due to the severity of the crime, helplessness of the victim and Belcher’s blatant refusal to comply with sexual offender registration laws, the U.S. Marshals made locating and arresting him a high priority.

Through investigative leads developed by the U.S. Marshals, the Ohio Adult Parole Authority and the Miami County Sheriffs Department, Belcher was tracked through three different counties in both Ohio and Indiana. At approximately 730pm last evening, U.S. Marshals had located the house in Dublin, Indiana where Belcher had been hiding. As Marshals and officers from the Dublin, Indiana Police Department approached the house, Belcher ran out a back door and fled. Unfortunately for Belcher, a request for assistance from the Marshals immediately caused a cascade of law enforcement officers, from six different departments, to converge on the area and seal off Belcher’s escape routes. Calls from helpful citizens also assisted the officers and Marshals with pinpointing the direction of travel Belcher had taken from the house. After approximately an hour and a half, Marshals and officers had tracked Belcher approximately three miles before Belcher ran out of woodland and was arrested as he walked into the security perimeter established during the initial minutes of the manhunt. Indiana Departments assisting in the search and arrest included the Dublin Police Department, the Centerville Police Department, the Cambridge Police Department, the Hagerstown Police Department, the Wayne County Sheriffs Office and the Indiana State Patrol. Belcher was taken into custody and transported to the Wayne County (Indiana) Jail where he will await extradition back to Ohio.

The U.S. Marshals Service was America’s first federal law enforcement agency and each year arrests more fugitives than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined.