Arkansas fugitive captured in Lewisburg

Aug. 29—U.S. Marshals, along with West Virginia State Police, Lewisburg Police Department and Greenbrier County Sheriff's Office, arrested a man on Tuesday who escaped from an Arkansas prison facility in 2022.

Samuel Paul Hartman, 39, an inmate at the East Arkansas Regional Unit, was sentenced to life in 2013 after being convicted of raping his 14-year-old stepdaughter, but he escaped on a work detail in a field near the detention facility.

Also taken into custody were Hartman's wife Misty Hartman, 39, his mother Linda Annette White, 61, and White's boyfriend Rodney Trent, 52, of Lester, W.Va., at the Quality Inn in Lewisburg, W.Va.

Both women are accused of helping Hartman escape using a pickup truck and jet skis.

According to a 2022 story by KNWA-TV and Fox24 News in Fayetteville, Ark., Arkansas State Police stated that a farmer reported seeing two abandoned jet skis on a boat ramp near Mhoon Landing Park. Deputies said they believed that Hartman used the jet skis to aid his escape.

Trent faces felony charges; he is accused of harboring a sex offender and assisting the trio while on the run.