Reuters) - The hunt for a
Missouri couple suspected in a spree of robberies and kidnappings across
the South ended on Friday with the man shot dead and the woman wounded
after a chase, standoff and shooting involving law enforcement in
Florida, police said. Blake Edward Fitzgerald, 30,
and his girlfriend, Brittany Nicole Harper, 30, dubbed a "modern-day
Bonnie and Clyde" by the U.S. Marshals Service, were wanted for crimes
committed during the past week in Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
Deputies
in the Florida Panhandle began pursuing the couple Thursday night after
they were linked to an armed robbery at a shoe store, Escambia County
Sheriff David Morgan told reporters at a news conference. The chase lasted several hours as the couple successfully evaded
officers. After midnight, authorities learned the duo had taken a family
hostage in their home before stealing their red truck, Morgan said.
Deputies cornered the couple in the truck soon after, and a 15-minute standoff ensued, the sheriff said. Refusing
to surrender, the suspects left the truck and tried to enter an
occupied home in Milton, Florida. Gunfire erupted, killing Fitzgerald
and wounding Harper in the leg, said Morgan, though he would not specify
who fired the shots. Six officers have been placed on administrative leave according to protocol as state investigators review the shooting.
Harper
was hospitalized and will be charged with grand theft auto, home
invasion robbery and false imprisonment, a Florida prosecutor said. Morgan said the couple's actions should not be glamorized with a catchy nickname.
"Bonnie and Clyde were a couple of thugs, too," he said.
The
marshals service said the couple began a crime spree spanning three
states on Sunday in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where they were accused of
kidnapping a hotel clerk and stealing his car. They
later released the hostage and ditched his vehicle before Fitzgerald
entered a family's home in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, flashed a gun and
took a woman at the residence hostage as he stole the family's car,
federal authorities said.
The
couple was then suspected of kidnapping a clerk from a convenience
store that they robbed in Perry, Georgia, on Monday, and committing two
more robberies in the Florida cities of Walnut Hills and Destin on
Wednesday. The marshals service had offered a $10,000 reward for their arrests, describing them as armed and dangerous.
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