
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 3, 1993                   TAG: 9312030173
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOHN A. NAGY LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

N.C. ESCAPEE RECAPTURED IN NEVADA

The fog was rolling onto the Nevada desert floor from the Clan Alpine Mountains, the sun was going down and the rain was turning to snow.

These were not the conditions Churchill County Sheriff Bill Lawry needed in his search for Michael Sonner - the Davidson County, N.C., escapee now suspected of killing a Nevada highway patrol trooper.

But as the weather turned ugly late Wednesday, Lawry received beautiful news from above. An officer flying over the Dixie Valley desert in a helicopter was seeing something in his high-tech thermal-imaging scope.

"He said they'd spotted a campfire and a single man," Lawry said Thursday.

Lawry figured he had found the man for whom he was looking. After all, the red sport/utility vehicle reported to have been stolen in Davidson County and driven across the country by Sonner had been found just three miles away in a ditch.

Police surrounded the campsite. They say the man fired two shots in the air and briefly pointed the gun at his head before giving up.

"In my opinion, he wanted to be found," Lawry said. "It was snowing, raining, the wind was blowing. It was just so damn cold."

The 25-year-old two-time escapee from North Carolina sat Thursday in a Nevada jail, charged with the murder of Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Carlos Borland, possession of stolen property and a number of firearm violations.

It was Sonner's second trip out West in the past three months. His escape Sept. 14 from a work detail while in the custody of the Davidson Correctional Center ended five days later when he stepped off a Greyhound bus in Butte, Mont.

While he was free that time, he is suspected of breaking into at least two houses, stealing vehicles and sexually assaulting a Montgomery County woman.

Sonner's latest escape came Nov. 16. Transferred to the Davidson County Jail from another prison for a court hearing, Sonner pushed out an air conditioner, scaled a razor-wire fence and fled in the early morning darkness.

A few miles away, police say, he stole the sport/utility vehicle.

For the most part, Sonner disappeared after that.

"A lot of people are talking about it. It's big news," said Harry Megurian, owner of the Trinity Truck Stop in Nevada, where police believe Sonner's escape began to unravel Tuesday night.

Police say a red sport/utility vehicle with Tennessee license plates filled up with gas at the truck stop and pulled off without paying.

Borland caught up with the vehicle several miles down the road.

The driver got out, and he and Borland stood by the vehicle, Highway Patrol officials say. The trooper looked away briefly and was shot in the head.

A trucker passing by stopped to radio for help. Borland, 25, died several hours later, just the second Nevada trooper killed in the line of duty.

by CNB