By Caryn Rousseau, The Associated Press
Alread, Ark. (AP) -- Police were confident Thursday that two men sought in the shooting of a state trooper were near their Ozark Mountain home because every vehicle in the area has been accounted for.
“As remote as this is, everybody sees something,” state police Sgt. Pete Westerman said. “These folks can tell you when the chickens are missing.”
Convicted felon Mark A. Holsombach, 49, and William J. Frazier, 28, are wanted in the shooting of a state trooper and for questioning in the disappearance of their neighbors. The pair have eluded police since Monday, when they fired shots at officers from near their hut at the end of a dirt road.
Police believe the two are still in the area, even though officers believed for 10 hours Monday that the men were holed up inside their 100-square-foot lean-to.
“All of their transportation is still here and no one has reported any vehicles stolen,” Westerman said. “There was no vehicle traffic at all last night.”
The size of the search zone changed again Thursday, to a 8-square-mile area northwest of Alread. Initially, police took a 300-acre search area down to 50 acres, but expanded it to a nearby mountain Wednesday before broadening it again Thursday.
Police from Little Rock, 65 miles south, relieved state and local police Thursday morning.
Westerman said officers in a helicopter had seen dozens of sink holes that Holsombach and Frazier could have been using as hideouts. Officers don’t believe the men have taken over any nearby homes.
“Everything is leading us to believe they are in the woods more than that they are in a house,” he said.
The men, described by authorities as asocial, with no particular political ideology, fled from their makeshift log cabin unnoticed Monday. Law officers had gone to serve warrants on the two men and ask them about the disappearance of Theodore R. Throneberry, 46, and his wife Ann Ryberg Throneberry, 45.
Instead, gunfire erupted, a state trooper was injured, and the officers surrounded the cabin until they realized Holsombach and Frazier were gone.
In their search, authorities have found signs of the men and the Throneberrys. They said they believe the Throneberrys are still alive.
Theodore Throneberry was last seen in February when he left a pipefitting job in Illinois and headed for his home near Alread. His wife has been missing from their home since March 1. She was last seen in her front yard with Holsombach and Frazier.
In the search, law officers found two bunkers on the fugitives’ property filled with weapons and military-type gear. In the woods, they found water bottles stashed in caves and hollow logs.
U.S. Alcohol, Tabacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Larry Scott stopped short of calling the men survivalists.
“These people have moved up here to be isolated, but we hesitate to use the term survivalist or anti-government,” Scott said Wednesday. “However, they have some of those tendencies.”
The ATF and FBI pulled their agents from the scene Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately known how long state police would commit several officers to the search.
“We evaluate whether to pull out two or three times a day. We could be here three weeks or we could be out tomorrow,” Westerman said.
Officers sought the men to serve a bench warrant for Holsombach for possession of firearms, a Florida arrest warrant that included a theft charge against Frazier, and a search warrant for the cabin. Additional warrants now include weapons charges and the attempted capital murder of a state trooper.
Alread schools remained closed for a third day Thursday, but authorities may have another group of children to worry about this weekend: the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s annual youth turkey always draws young hunters to the area.
Westerman said the commission won’t shut down the hunting areas near Alread, but the police are asking families not to travel to Archey Creek, Turkey Pen Hollow, Dutch Hollow, Dollar Hollow and Rattlesnake Hollow.