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Lakeland Slaying Suspects Are Arrested In Alabama

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By JOSH POLTILOVE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 19, 2008

TAMPA - John Eugene Odom and Susan Marie Wallen, the Lakeland couple wanted in the slaying of two Lakeland men, were taken into custody Wednesday in Alabama, Polk County deputies say.

Odom sought a camping permit at Tuskegee National Forest, said Ranger Charles Foote, who said he and a Macon County Sheriff's Office sergeant recognized the suspect. Wallen was outside the ranger's station with her two sons and was taken into custody soon after.

Odom and Wallen were wanted on two counts each of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Henry Todd Bruder and Dion Travis White.

Odom and Wallen initially were sought in the theft of Bruder's 2005 Nissan Altima.

The couple didn't come to the station to turn themselves in, deputies say.

Foote said he did not want to reveal that he knew who Odom was and tried to build a rapport with him.

Another ranger told the other employees in the station to go outside before the sheriff's sergeant placed handcuffs on Odom, Foote said.

"He was kind of shocked," Foote told WSFA, a television station in Montgomery, Ala. "He tried to talk his way out of it."

Angelita Sanders, Odom's sister, had been worried Odom was en route to her Houston home. She doesn't think her brother is capable of killing but said she wanted him to turn himself in and tell his story to police.

"I know he wouldn't have caused no harm" while on the run, "but I'm glad that it's over," Sanders said. "Now they can get it all sorted out, and they can get to the bottom of it. If they did it, they can do the time.

"There's no sense in running, because you can't run forever."

Bruder, 30, was found tied up and shot to death Saturday morning at the Lakeland home he shared with White, his half-brother. They were previously reported to be stepbrothers, but White's niece, Dalena Hobbs, said Wednesday they were half-brothers.

Sunday morning, White's family discovered his body in the woods near the home.

On Tuesday, the couple were seen with the boys at a Wal-Mart in Auburn, Ala., deputies say. Polk deputies contacted Auburn police and other Alabama law enforcement agencies.

The park ranger station was within miles of Auburn.

A Macon County Sheriff's Office sergeant was at the ranger's station at 11 a.m. Wednesday, having just received a call and an e-mail bulletin from a Polk County homicide detective containing photos and information on Odom and Wallen, Polk deputies say.

The sergeant and the rangers were talking when Odom walked in. They took the pair into custody without incident.

Susan Wallen and her two sons, Josh Smith, 13, and Brandon Wallen, 8, were in a rented U-Haul just outside the station.

Odom, Wallen and her sons had been staying at a campground in Tuskegee National Forest.

Wallen's sons will be placed in the custody of the state of Alabama, Polk deputies say. An Alabama agency there will coordinate with the Florida Department of Children & Families to have the boys returned to Florida.

Polk detectives were to head to Alabama to question Odom and Wallen, and the pair eventually will be extradited to Florida.

Odom and Wallen had been on the run for days, deputies say.

They checked into a Motor Inn in Ocala on Saturday, and investigators obtained a search warrant to enter the room, a sheriff's office release states. When Ocala police's SWAT team arrived late Sunday, Odom and Wallen were not there.

Investigators learned that Odom and Wallen had left in a U-Haul they rented Sunday.

Sanders said that until Odom called her about three months ago, she hadn't spoken to her brother for about 20 years. She wasn't sure why he would want to run to her home, but said law enforcement had come to her door twice in recent days looking for him.

If he had looked for her in Houston, she said, she would have called police and taken the children from his care.

"The children that were with him, they don't need to be caught up in the middle of this," she said.

Sanders remembers her brother as a good, smart, well-mannered person and good student. But he ran into trouble, served time for burglary and was convicted of attempted murder after stabbing someone while behind bars, she said.

The stabbing occurred after someone attacked him, she said.

"Talking with him on the phone, he said he's trying to get a job, but that it's hard because he had a record," she said. "When he was in jail, he was trying to better himself - not knowing that when he got out, society was going to look at him like a reject."

Sanders said she thinks her brother is innocent.

"I don't think he killed those people," she said. "I just think they're scared about what's being said about them."

Reporter Josh Poltilove can be reached at (813) 259-7691 or jpoltilove@tampatrib.com. Keyword: Ranger, to watch an interview with the forest ranger who spotted the suspect.

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