Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- A Kona, Hawaii, man who fled his sunny home state to escape an arrest warrant is cooling his heels in a Palmer jail after a savvy police detective found him in the Butte. Palmer police, with help from the U.S. Marshal's Fugitive Task Force and Alaska State Troopers, arrested 32-year-old Tyler Ferguson last Thursday without incident.

A few days earlier, someone had called Palmer police Detective Sgt. Kelly Turney with a vague tip: that a guy named Tyler from Hawaii was fleeing a warrant and staying outside town.

"This guy leaves Hawaii in the middle of the winter to come to the Butte," Turney said. "There's got to be something wrong with that."

He made a few calls to sources in the community and in law enforcement, figured out Ferguson's last name and birth date, and ran a warrant check. He found out Ferguson was wanted in Hawaii County, on the Big Island, for failing to appear in court on a driving under the influence charge, Turney said.

He contacted the Hawaii County Police Department. Yes, the department said, they wanted Ferguson back.

Turney said he called marshals for backup when he saw some prior arrests on Ferguson's record. The team found Ferguson at his own place in the Butte, where he'd been doing odd jobs, Turney said.

"Tyler was completely cooperative," the detective said. "He just said he wanted to start his life over. In order to do that, he's got to take care of his prior legal commitments in other states."

Ferguson was booked at the Mat-Su Pre-Trial Facility on fugitive-from-justice charges.

State judicial service officials are now awaiting an extradition warrant issued through the governor's offices of Hawaii and Alaska. That can take 60 to 90 days, said Trooper Rick Pyles, with judicial services. Ferguson could waive extradition and get back faster, Pyles said.

It will be officers from Kona doing the escorting.

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