DATE: Tuesday, November 25, 1997            TAG: 9711220633

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: Success Story 

SOURCE: BY NAOMI AOKI, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   65 lines

TIPS FROM READERS LEAD TO ARRESTS OF 2 FUGITIVES

FBI agent Scott Spiegelhalter got a call last Tuesday noon about a fugitive he'd been chasing for months.

Iray Lee Dudley is at a blood bank near Wards Corner, the caller told him.

Three hours later, Spiegelhalter arrested Dudley, who was wanted on a federal bank-robbery charge.

The caller had seen Dudley's picture in The Virginian-Pilot's Most Wanted column earlier that morning.

At noon the next day, Virginia Beach Police Detective Mike Nance got a tip from someone who had seen Roberta G. Amell's picture in the same column that Amell had moved to the Midwest.

Two hours later, after Nance followed a trail of public records and enlisted the help of a fugitive task force in Louisville, Ky., Amell was in custody.

She had been on the run since April 1996, when she failed to appear in court to face an attempted robbery charge.

``I was at a dead end,'' Nance said.

But then the caller gave Nance the one tip he needed.

One Tuesday a month, The Virginian-Pilot runs a Most Wanted column featuring the pictures and descriptions of suspects wanted by The Tidewater Fugitive Task Force, a joint effort of the FBI, Virginia State Police and Virginia Beach Police.

Since the column began in March, at least five of the fugitives profiled have been arrested.

Both Dudley and Amell were featured in last Tuesday's column.

Dudley is charged with robbing the Norfolk Naval Supply Center Federal Credit Union in August.

In July 1995, Amell went into a pet store at Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach armed with a stun gun, threatened employees, took a puppy and assaulted two security guards while attempting to escape, according to police. She was arrested but then failed to show up for an April 1996 court proceeding.

Agents said their phones started ringing with tips at 7 a.m. Tuesday, hours after The Pilot hit doorsteps and news stands around South Hampton Roads. More than six people called in with information about Dudley. Callers have also provided tips on two other fugitives featured last week.

``You're only as good as your information,'' said Ron Smith, an FBI agent who heads up the task force.

Thanks to some good information from the public, solid investigative work and a little luck, the task force has caught more than 200 people running from the law since it formed in May 1996.

They've made as many as eight arrests in a week, and on several red-letter days, they've brought in as many as three fugitives.

In Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk and Virginia Beach, task force members say there are about 9,000 suspects on the run from felony charges ranging from fraud to murder. Numbers from Portsmouth and Suffolk were not available.

Spiegelhalter and Nance won't say who called or how they knew Dudley and Amell's whereabouts. Confidentiality is guaranteed to everyone who calls in with information about fugitives.

They are thankful for the calls. Tuesday and Wednesday's arrests resulted directly from readers' tips, they say.

As Spiegelhalter and his fellow agents arrested Dudley, a friend was running towards him waving a newspaper and yelling, ``You're in the paper. You're in the paper,'' Spiegelhalter said.

Dudley even took a copy of the paper to jail with him, he said. MEMO: To contact the task force, call 455-0100.

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