Rage On The Run

An American Bodybuilder Becomes An International Fugitive

(CBS)  Police found the gun that killed Ian Broadhurst - fully loaded - under Bieber’s bed, along with almost 300 rounds of ammunition. Bieber was taken to a high-security jail, held at gunpoint every step of the way.

"When David Bieber was arrested, he never spoke one word to us," says Gregg. "He never opened his mouth. He never uttered one word."

But that would all change a year later, when Bieber had his day in court.

David Bieber’s two-week murder trial took place in a Newcastle courtroom. And at its end he testified in his own defense. He admitted being on the scene when Ian Broadhurst was murdered, but he said the actual shooter was a friend of his from Florida, somebody he refused to name. Prosecutors dubbed this the mystery man “Mister X” and ridiculed the entire story.

Bieber even denied ever being in the patrol car, but prosecutors found a novel way to convince the jury he was lying.

"We tracked down the gambling companies that he had been using, telephone betting," says Gregg. "And the gambling companies tape record the calls. So, we managed to gather quite a lot of recordings of the person who was using the name Nathan Wayne Coleman."

Voice expert Peter French compared the gambling phone calls to the patrol car tape and says he found "very similar pronunciation to the one that you found in the car recording."

"This is one of the most clear-cut cases in which I’ve ever acted," says French. "Short of a fingerprint, it doesn’t get much better."

Of course, prosecutors had Bieber’s fingerprint as well, on that candy wrapper in the back seat.

The jury wasted little time, finding Bieber guilty in just three hours. The sentence was equally emphatic - life behind bars.

"This is a whole life sentence, which is very unusual in this country," says Gregg. "Very few and far between a sentence of whole life. So, he will never be granted parole."

For Ian Broadhurst’s family, it was scant consolation.

"I’m old enough to be able to remember the time when if the news told us that somebody had been shot in this country, you stopped what you were doing and said, shot? Not here," says Broadhurst's mother, Cindy Eaton. "That happens maybe in America, but not here. We don’t stop any more."

Ferrante says the case will always hurt him. "Every time I think of the officer in the United Kingdom, this Ian Broadhurst, it will always hurt me, it will always bother me."

He also doesn't have the satisfaction of making the arrest. "But that’s the selfish part of fugitive work. The real part of fugitive work is the bad guy’s in jail."

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British prison officials foiled an escape plot by David Bieber in October 2007. He apparently planned to escape by helicopter with an arsenal of weapons.

Danielle Labelle divorced bieber in 2003.

Since he is serving life without parole, there are no plans to try David Bieber for Markus Mueller's murder.

[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.