A convicted rapist who was convicted for raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter was arrested in West Virginia a year after he escaped from prison on a jet ski, authorities said in a press release Tuesday.
The U.S. Marshals Service announced the arrest of the convicted rapist identified as Samuel Hartman, 39, along with his wife, Misty, mother, Linda White and her boyfriend, Rodney Trent, at a hotel in Lewisburg, WV.
On Aug. 12, 2022, Hartman was on work detail while an inmate at the East Arkansas Regional Unit when a vehicle approached the work crew, the Marshals Service said. Two women, who the U.S. Marshals Service allege were White and Misty Hartman, exited and began firing shots at the guards as Samuel ran to the truck.
Corrections officers pursued the trio to the Mississippi River, where they allegedly fled on “pre-staged” jet skis, authorities said. The jet skis were later found abandoned on the Mississippi side of the river.
Investigators later learned that White had ties to West Virginia and contacted the Southern District of West Virginia for help, authorities said. The trio and Trent were located and arrested at a Quality Inn Tuesday afternoon.
“Today’s announcement is the culmination of a year of outstanding, dedicated work by our heroic law enforcement officers,” Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. “Now that they have brought this dangerous fugitive to justice, all Arkansans can sleep safer at night.”
Trent, 52, was charged with harboring a sex offender and assisting the trio while on the run, the Marshals Service said. The release did not specify what charges Misty, 39, and White, 61, are facing.
Samuel Hartman was convicted of raping his stepdaughter in 2013. He was sentenced to life in prison, according to jail records.
West Virginia State Police, the Lewisburg Police Department and the Greenbrier County Sheriff’s Office assisted in the apprehension of the foursome.