U.S. Marshals took the 31-year-old into custody Thursday night inside an abandoned airplane hangar at the defunct Birchwood-Pocono Airpark on Cherry Lane and Birchwood Drive in Tannersville, Pennsylvania, Barrett Township Police confirmed to NBC10.
Frein is charged with opening fire on two troopers outside state police’s Blooming Grove barracks on Sept. 12. Cpl. Bryon Dickson was killed and another trooper, Alex Douglass, was seriously hurt.
Police sources tell NBC10 that the FBI and U.S. Marshals were stationed near the airstrip when a tip came in about a person going in and out of the hangar. Authorities nabbed him as he attempted to walk back in. Inside, a gun and rifle were recovered, state police confirmed. The airport is some 40 miles from the barracks.
Authorities slapped Dickson's handcuffs onto Frein's wrists when they placed him under arrest, law enforcement sources told NBC10.
Blood trickled from a cut on the bridge of Frein's nose as he was led away from the airport in a police cruiser. The man was nearly clean-shaven and had medium length hair hanging from his head -- not the mow hawk that investigators said he could have been wearing. Sources said Frein was depleted and had no fight left in him.
In a caravan, police drove Frein to the Blooming Grove trooper barracks, the same place he allegedly shot the officers, to be processed. The man was nearly dragged into the station, his bound hands held behind his head, as a dozen rifle-armed troopers stood watch.
Frein, whom police describe as a survivalist who was armed and dangerous, eluded authorities for 48 days amid an intense manhunt in dense forest around northeastern Pennsylvania. The search prompted authorities to close schools, ask residents to shelter in their homes or stay away and cost the state millions of dollars.
Police linked the shooting to Frein after a man walking his dog found the suspect’s SUV partially submerged in a swamp near the shooting scene. Inside, investigators discovered shell casings that matched those found at the shooting scene, the man’s driver’s license, camouflage face paint, empty rifle casings and military gear.
Using dogs, thermal imaging technology and other tools, law enforcement officials combed miles of forest as they hunted for the suspect, whom they called an experienced survivalist at home in the woods.
They pursued countless tips, and they closed in on an area around Frein's parents' home in Canadensis after he used his cellphone to try contacting them, and the signal was traced to a location about three miles away.
Trackers found items they believe Frein hid or abandoned in the woods — including soiled diapers, empty packs of Serbian cigarettes, an AK-47-style assault rifle and ammunition, and two pipe bombs that were functional and capable of causing significant damage. They also discovered a journal, allegedly kept by Frein and found in a bag of trash at a hastily abandoned campsite, that offered a chilling account of the ambush and his subsequent escape into the woods. The journal's author described Dickson as falling, "still and quiet," after being shot twice.
