Survivalist charged with ambushing Pennsylvania police due in court

By Joe McDonald EAST STROUDSBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - A survivalist charged with ambushing two Pennsylvania state troopers, killing one of them, and then leading hundreds of state and federal law enforcement officers on a weeks-long manhunt will appear in court on Monday for a preliminary hearing. Tight security is expected at the Pike County Courthouse in Milford, just as when Eric Frein was arraigned there after his capture on Oct. 30. Michael Weinstein, one of Frein's lawyers, said the defendant's preliminary hearing could spill into Tuesday. "They booked us two days, just in case," Weinstein said on Friday. Weinstein said he did not know how many witnesses prosecutors intended to call and knew nothing about one witness who prosecutors have said is coming from Louisiana. Pike County District Attorney Ray Tonkin said he believed the hearing will take one day. Frein, 31, was arrested after a 48-day, $11 million manhunt near an abandoned airplane hangar near Tannersville, Pennsylvania. Frein lived with his parents in Canadensis in nearby Barrett Township, but was also a survivalist who spent long periods in the woods, police said. He is facing a first-degree murder charge carrying a possible death sentence, and related offenses, including terrorism. He is accused of the Sept. 12 sniper attack that killed Corporal Bryon Dickson of the Pennsylvania State Police and critically wounded Trooper Alex Douglass outside the Blooming Grove barracks during a late-night shift change. In a letter to his parents found in the hangar, Frein said he was upset with where the country was headed and wanted to "wake people up," though he never cited the attack on the troopers, according to an amended complaint against the defendant. During the hunt for Frein in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, searchers discovered a journal, apparently written by Frein, that coldly described the shooting that night. Frein had spent years planning the attack, but accidentally drove his Jeep into a pond in the dark woods, police said. The Jeep, found three days later by a neighbor, and the items he left there helped police to identify Frein as the suspect. Frein's driver's license, social security card and shell casings from the sniper's rifle allegedly used in the attack were found inside the Jeep, police said. As the manhunt for Frein intensified, helicopters, airplanes and armored vehicles joined the search in the Pocono woods. The hunt drew national attention and the FBI placed Frein on its Most Wanted list. (Corrects date of story) (Editing by Frank McGurty and Richard Chang)