Rage On The Run

An American Bodybuilder Becomes An International Fugitive

(CBS)  But Snipes claimed he was only a hired gun, and that John Saladino had paid him just over $1,000 for each hit. Police found Saladino holed up with David Bieber.

"We didn’t think we had enough evidence to arrest David Bieber. We did think we had probable cause to arrest John Saladino," says Futch. "So we went to the apartment and knocked on the door and, eventually, John opened the door. John Saladino. And, I said 'Hey John, I need you to go downtown with me, and we need to talk.' And David was in the background going, 'You don't have to go, John. You don't have to go.' But he came with us. I started talking to him, and I told him what David Snipes had said."

When he saw Snipes was in custody, Saladino confessed but insisted he was only a go-between. He said that he had hired Snipes but that David Bieber had paid for it.

"When he asked me to find somebody to kill Markus Mueller, I says, 'Why do you want to do that?' And, he's like, 'I have my reasons.' " says Saladino. "David Bieber gave me, it was $1,000. And his address - Markus Mueller lived in Hacienda Village in Bonita Springs. And I asked David Snipes he was willing to do it and he said he would."

Finally, Futch had enough to arrest David Bieber for first degree murder. But Bieber was gone.

"So I called him on his cell phone," says Futch. "I said, 'Why don't you come on in and see me, and talk to me. We need to straighten this up.' And he goes, 'Well, I tell you what, let me call my attorney, and I'll get back to you.' That's the last phrase I ever heard from David Bieber. David just disappeared."

Months passed, then years. A new investigator, Charlie Ferrante, inherited the case and quickly became consumed with the search.

He put Bieber’s family and friends under surveillance, and says they were hiding and assisting him.

He pored over their phone records, monitored their travel and kept tabs on Bieber’s old hang-outs.

He scoured the country to follow up on leads but leads that initially seemed promising, led nowhere.

"We obtained a Tennessee driver's license in his name," says Ferrante.

Ferrante believes Bieber used his own name to mislead investigators and focus their search on Tennessee.

Bieber wasn’t there. And now, complicating their search, police noticed that his appearance was starting to change. He changed his hair and started gaining weight, leading Ferrante to believe that Bieber was off the steroids.

What police didn’t know was that Bieber was hard at work on a whole new identity. But he needed a name, someone roughly his age, with an innocent past.

[jabailo]

One thing that bothered me...isn''t it standard procedure for a suspect to be "patted down" to look for weapons (guns, billy clubs) by police even in Britain.