One of two Newton County fugitives accused of molesting a 5-year-old girl is back in jail more than a week after being released on lesser charges, then being the subject of a massive manhunt.
Police captured Donald Mac Brown, 36, Sunday after he tried to carjack a woman in Alachua, Fla., about 15 miles north of Gainesville, Fla. By then, the other fugitive, David Wesley Crawford, 57, had turned himself in to Alachua Police.
Police thought the avid outdoorsmen had been hiding in the woods of Newton County after they told family members they would not go back to jail. They had been on the run since last week.
Brown could have remained in police custody after being arrested late last month on a misdemeanor pandering charge – offering money for sex – but federal and local investigators weren’t able to develop enough evidence to gain arrest warrants for more serious offenses they sought against him: child molestation and child exploitation.
“Before those other charges could be substantiated and warrants secured, he made bond,” Conyers Police Lt. Jackie Dunn told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, referring to the felony charges police sought. “And that’s when he took flight.”
According to a timeline compiled from records obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has an extensive program of identifying and arresting child predators, had been investigating Brown late last month.
“We were serving a search warrant pursuant to a child pornography investigation,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Vincent Picard said of a Nov. 28 encounter Brown had with DHS agents who were accompanied by Conyers police officers.
Brown admitted to sending a text message asking for sex in exchange for $300 and was arrested for pandering, according to a Conyers Police incident report.
He was taken to the Rockdale County jail while investigators continued looking through the home, said Dunn of the Conyers Police.
“Doing interviews inside the location, we discovered past and present child molestations … some that occurred within the jurisdiction of the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Department and some that occurred in Newton County,” Dunn said.
Investigators informed Newton County officials, and they earned something new from federal lawmen.
“He had child pornography on his phone,” Dunn said.
According to the Conyers police report, the discovery of sexually explicit images and videos of children was reported on Nov. 29, after Brown had been in jail one day.
Now, Rockdale and Newton had independent investigations under way.
“There was an individual at the house that told us that they suspected … that he was probably molesting a 5-year-old that lived in Newton County because there had been recent contact,” Dunn said. “Investigating that is where Newton got their charges from.”
Rockdale County Sheriff’s officials said they have thus far passed their evidence on to Newton and are not planning to press any charges.
On Friday, Nov. 30, Brown bonded out with $2,000 on the pandering charge.
The following Monday, Dec. 3, Rockdale County Magistrate Court Judge Joy Wright signed the Conyers arrest warrant charging Brown with child exploitation.
A day later, Newton charged Brown and Crawford with child molestation.
Then the search began.
It is unclear how Crawford and Brown know one another. But authorities said both men have had previous brushes with the law and both were known to spend long periods of time in the woods.
Dunn called Brown a transient, saying he lived in the basement of the Conyers home.
“When we went to Newton County to look for him, he was actually living in a tent behind a family member’s house,” Dunn said.
And when police couldn’t find the two men at their respective homes – family members told police Brown vowed that he “was not going back to jail,” according to police – a full-scale manhunt ensued, headed by Newton County Sheriff’s deputies and involving U.S. Marshals and law enforcement officials from throughout the region.
The search ended Sunday.
Police said Crawford called 911 that morning to surrender, and he was carrying a .357 handgun tucked in his pants when they arrested him without incident.
Brown, however, didn’t give up easily.
“It was about 12 in the afternoon when he went after the woman in her car,” Alachua Police Detective Jesse Sandusky told the AJC.
According to police, Brown tried to carjack a woman at gunpoint, punching her in the face and ordering her to drive.
“She was screaming and yelling and it must have scared him, because he got out of the car,” Sandusky said.
She called police and officers arrived, finding Brown less than a half mile from where he’d left the woman, police said.
He led them on a short foot chase, but was eventually arrested with two handguns and a rifle on his person, authorities said.
“He didn’t know Crawford had turned himself in,” Sandusky said.
Both Crawford and Brown are being held in the Alachua County Jail without bond.
Newton County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Deputy Cortney Morrison said the two will have to answer for their crimes in Florida before they return to Georgia.
“Then the extradition will run its course,” Morrison told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In addition to child molestation, child exploitation, solicitation of sodomy, and child enticement charges in Georgia, Brown has also been charged with kidnapping, burglary, obstruction and tampering with evidence.
Crawford, who was charged in Newton County with child molestation, enticing a minor for indecent purposes and solicitation for sodomy can add carrying a concealed weapon to the offenses against him.
“We’re just glad everything turned out the way it did,” Sandusky said. “Whenever a person says they’re not going back to jail, they usually try to do something bad or hurt someone.”
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