Principal Caught in Las Vegas with Missing Girl
Originally published by Reuters, May 8, 2001
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) — A former Baptist school principal from Indiana who allegedly abducted an 11-year-old girl, triggering a nationwide manhunt, was arrested at a Las Vegas motel on Tuesday after police found both of them there.
William Beith, 28, was taken into custody at a Budget Motel after Las Vegas police officers who were searching for him and 11-year-old Gabrielle Marshall spotted his white truck in the parking lot, FBI spokesman Doug Garrison said.
Garrison said Marshall, a sixth-grader at Liberty Baptist Academy in Lake Station, Indiana, was found on the grounds of the motel unhurt and was being examined by local authorities.
The Chicago Tribune reported on its web site that the girl's parents, John and Sybil Marshall, of Gary, Indiana, were elated to hear that their daughter had been found.
"I got to shouting, 'Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" the paper quoted John Marshall as telling reporters. "I'm going to hug her and squeeze her. We're going to have a big party."
"We believe none of this would ever have happened unless we prayed," Marshall told the Tribune. "We had people all over the country praying for Gabrielle and praying for us. We just want to thank God. We give God the credit for this."
Beith will face federal charges of enticing a minor and transporting a minor across state lines to engage in sexual activity, Garrison said. The FBI tracked the pair in Ohio, Tennessee and Oklahoma before finding them in Las Vegas.
Gabrielle Marshall was last seen running through the parking lot of a Portage, Indiana Wal-Mart store after reportedly fighting with her parents, and authorities said she probably called Beith.
As FBI agents pursued them across the country the pair sent letters to their families. Gabrielle Marshall apologized to her parents but said she was fine and "having fun."
The Tribune said that, prior to her disappearance, Gabrielle Marshall and her parents had reported that Beith had engaged in sex with her while they were on a school-sponsored camping trip.
Garrison said Beith, who has been dismissed from the Liberty Baptist Academy, was registered at the motel under his own name.
