Rage On The Run

An American Bodybuilder Becomes An International Fugitive

(CBS)  Knowing who their fugitive really was added even more urgency to the hunt. Because police now feared that Bieber might try to flee the country. And on Dec. 30, day five of the chase, a tip was called in that he had been spotted at a train station in York, only about 20 miles from the scene of the crime.

By the time police arrived, there was no sign of Bieber. In fact, he was nearly 100 miles away, having arrived that very afternoon in the town of Gateshead, in the far northeast corner of England. He had checked into the Royal Hotel, a modest place off the main highway.

Vicky Brown, who was on duty that night at the hotel, remembers what Bieber looked like. "Very big, very tall and he looked quite broad and he was wearing this black, wooly hat pulled right down over his ears, and a big pair of old fashioned glasses."

Brown says Bieber's room overlooked the main street.

Brown went back to the reception area, but couldn’t stop thinking about the stranger upstairs. She had heard about the manhunt briefly on the news but then saw a photo of the fugitive in the newspaper.

"It wasn't until I looked at the photograph and I seen this picture of what this guy might look like. So, I sat and drew a pair of glasses on this paper and that's when I thought, 'Yeah, could be,' " recalls Brown.

She called her boss at home, who then called police.

Vicky waited for police to arrive, alone with the most wanted man in Britain. She remembers being "terrified."

Meanwhile in Florida, Lt. Ferrante was reeling from the news that David Bieber had resurfaced after eight long years. "I was called and told a police officer lost his life because of David Bieber. I remember hanging up the phone, closing my door, and I actually broke down," he says.

Thousands of miles away, David Bieber was hoping to slip away one more time, but British police had been tipped.

Police arrived at the Royal Hotel shortly before 2 a.m. New Year’s Eve. David Bieber was upstairs in his room alone and, they assumed, ready to shoot his way out. But this time he wasn’t facing three unarmed men. This time he was facing a S.W.A.T. team, armed with high-powered rifles.

Police cautiously climbed the stairs to Bieber’s room.

"When he first came to the door, we didn’t actually see him. The door opened by about an inch, an inch and a half, and then slammed shut quickly after that," recalls one of the officers who was there.

For seven tense minutes there was silence while Bieber considered his options.

"He couldn't go out of the window, he had to go out of the door," says Gregg. "And I think he was weighing up his chances of surviving. And I think he realized that if he was going into a shoot out here, he would end up being killed himself."

Bieber may have thought so, too. He opened the door and gave up without a fight.

"After that, the door fully opened and the subject stood in the doorway fully dressed and the most distinctive part was his hair," remembers one of the arresting officers.

His hair was distinctive because the one-time master of disguise had done a rather bad job dyeing it, which was now an odd orangey-blonde. He fooled no one.

"But there was the most cruel irony in his surrender," says Gregg. "He said to the officer, 'You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man would you?' Now, considering what this character had done to an unarmed police officer, David Bieber using those words, I think he knew exactly what he was doing at that point."

[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.