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American Morning

The Hiding Places of a Desperate Fugitive

Aired August 31, 2001 - 12:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Police in Sacramento are not confirming whether Nikolay Soltys has confessed to killing his six family member. A local newspaper reports that the Ukrainian immigrant did so during police interviews. Soltys was arrested yesterday at his mother's house in Sacramento after 10 days on the run.

CNN's Rusty Dornin now with more on the hiding places of a desperate fugitive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No where left to run, and the last place he chose to hide proved to be a giveaway. The tiny desk where officers found Nikolay Soltys crouching outside his mother's kitchen offered little cover.

Officers who found him say he'd obviously been a man on the run.

VIRGIL BROWN, ARRESTING OFFICER: He was very dirty. His feet were dirty. His whole body was basically dirty like he'd been camping out. He had a two or three-day growth of a bear, just very disheveled. Again, looked like he'd been camping out.

DORNIN: Camping out would have been easy for Soltys in this neighborhood.

(on camera): This homeless encampment is only about 100 yards from where Soltys was found in his mother's backyard. While there's no indication he was here, there are plenty of places to hide here in the woods and underbrush.

(voice-over): A block away is another small creek and wooded area. Behind it, an office building, where two women they believe they say Soltys come inside to use the bathroom this week.

BETTIE HARRIS, OFFICE WORKER: We did like this, and I said excuse me, and he looks at me and politely bows his head and smiled, and I just turned around this corner, and then that's when it hit me, who I thought I'd seen.

SHANNON RADFORD, OFFICE WORKER: He looked kind of strange, kind of like a bum coming in to use the restroom. I remember thinking to myself, well, what's he doing there, and I looked down, and He didn't have any shoes on, and he just looked down and ran down the stairs. DORNIN: A neighborhood laced with woods and parkways, neighbors say plenty of places where kids love to play.

NANCY KASSNEY, NEIGHBOR: Many, many children play back by the creek. They jump bicycles, they play. It's amazing to me that there was -- that no one saw him.

DORNIN: Two doors down from where Soltys was arrested, Jason Honea IS upset officers didn't tell them there could be a fugitive close by.

JASON HONEA, NEIGHBOR: Because then I could have taken extra precautions. Number one, screen door open a little bit later, trying to keep cool. My garage door open stays open late. She comes home late, sometimes by herself with the kids.

DORNIN: Shirley Kribbs confronted Soltys' mother, so she feared Soltys hiding nearby, near where mother lived.

SHIRLEY KRIBBS, FAMILY FRIEND: We all knew. We all knew he'd come back to kill her. Everybody, all of our friends, we knew he'd be back to kill her. Of course. She was the only one left.

DORNIN: Ten days of hide-and-seek, a nationwide manhunt for a man who'd never traveled far from his mother's backyard.

Rusty Dornin, CNN, Sacramento, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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