MILTON, Fla. — A weeklong search for a Missouri couple wanted in a series of robberies and abductions across the South ended with one suspect dead and the other wounded Friday.
Authorities said they chased the pair and exchanged gunfire with them in Florida’s panhandle.
Blake Fitzgerald died and Brittany Nicole Harper was at a hospital under armed guard with a wounded leg, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said at a news conference. Harper faces charges including home invasion, robbery, false imprisonment and grand theft auto, Morgan said.
The sheriff said the chase began shortly after reports of an armed robbery at a Famous Footwear store in Pensacola at 7:56 p.m. Thursday. Witnesses said the man held a gun on the clerk while the woman shopped, according to Morgan.
Authorities began chasing the couple, following them to nearby Pensacola Beach, before driving through Pensacola, Morgan said. At one point, the pair held a Pensacola family captive and eventually fled in the family’s red pickup, he said.
It was 12:16 a.m. Friday when the vehicle was spotted on I-10, Morgan said. Deputies followed the truck as it exited and went down a rural road.
Morgan said his deputies had a standoff with the couple for about 15 minutes before Fitzgerald got out of the truck and appeared to be heading into a home that was occupied near the small town of Milton. After an exchange of gunfire, authorities said, Fitzgerald had been killed.
Authorities had linked Fitzgerald and Harper to a series of crimes in Alabama and Georgia.
Authorities said the couple had been on the run since January. Police in Joplin, Mo., had wanted to interview the two about a Jan. 22 break-in in which guns were stolen from a home. The couple also is suspected in two Florida robberies — in Walnut Hill and Destin — on Wednesday, U.S. marshals spokesman Martin Keely said.