CAPTURED: Nathaniel Thomas Jr. in Ponce, Puerto Rico
[ad name=”HTML-68″]PONCE — Two wanted St. Croix fugitives were arrested in Puerto Rico in back-to-back raids by the U.S. Marshals Service on Saturday.
Ivan James, wanted for a double homicide by the Virgin Islands Police Department and Nathaniel Thomas Jr., wanted for escape from the Golden Grove Adult Correctional Facility are now in custody, according to U.S. Marshal Jim Clark.
James, 34, is considered the prime suspect in the double murder that took place at the Coliseum Cockpit in Estate Glynn on Feb. 17.
He was arrested in a house in Guayanilla, just west of Ponce.
“The U.S. Marshals just happened to find Ivan James in the course of the investigation,” Michael Picou, a supervisory deputy U.S. Marshal, told the V.I. Daily News. “He was not the target of the U.S. Marshal Service — just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Thomas, 28, escaped from the Virgin Islands only prison on March 15.
He was taken into custody in a house in Ponce, on Puerto Rico’s southern coast.
“Early this morning the U.S. Marshals from the District of the Virgin Islands working with the U.S. Marshals Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force and the U.S. Marshals Task Force in Puerto Rico located and arrested Nathaniel Thomas along with Ivan James without incident in Ponce, PR,” Clark said.
During this fugitive investigation the U.S. Marshals were assisted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Attorney’s Office, and Crime Stoppers USVI.
https://www.usmarshals.gov/news/chron/2018/040718.htm