MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A 'psychopathic killer' who eluded a manhunt for nearly three days was captured Wednesday when he was spotted buying a soft drink, officials said, charging him with slaying a mother and daughter.
A sheriff's deputy at a service station Wednesday afternoon spotted Raymond Eugene Brown, 41, who, at the age of 14, confessed to using a 6-inch knife to stab and slash to death his 83-year-old great-grandmother, his 63-year-old grandmother and his 31-year-old aunt.
Brown, described by Police Chief John Wilson as a 'psychopathic killer' and 'extremely dangerous,' was arrested without incident at the Wallsboro area service station.
'We've had people working around the clock since this thing was discovered Monday morning,' said Police Sgt. Cassandra Williams.
The bodies of social worker Linda LaMonte, 32, and her daughter, Sheila Smoke, 10, were found in their north Montgomery home about 10 a.m. Monday by LaMonte's 6-year-old son.
Police said the slayings were ritualistic, like the three murders Brown was convicted of in 1960 when he was a teenager. Investigators said there was no apparent motive for the slaying of LaMonte and Smoke.
Brown was tried and convicted as an adult and was paroled in 1973 in the killings of his three relatives in Ashland in Clay County.
In 1980, he was returned to prison for a parole violation when he attempted to strangle his landlord in Montgomery. He was paroled again in 1986.
Police said Brown was involved in a traffic accident in the Lake Jordan area Monday before the slayings were discovered. State troopers investigated the accident and kept his car, but released Brown.
Police say Brown was at the LaMonte home in recent days and apparently had done yard work for the family through the summer. He lived in Montgomery, but also stayed with friends and family in Clay County and Phenix City.
