SACRAMENTO, May 16 (UPI) -- A Cal Fire battalion chief suspected of killing his girlfriend was arrested Friday after more than two weeks on the run.
The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department released few details about the arrest of Orville "Moe" Fleming, saying only that he is in custody. Fleming, 55, allegedly killed Sarah June Douglas, 26, in the home they shared in South Sacramento on the night of April 30.
Douglas's sister told investigators they talked by phone shortly after returning from a trip to a casino with their mother. The sister said she heard a loud argument and a scream.
When she went to the house the next morning, the sister found Douglas's bloody body with a sheet wrapped around her neck. Fleming was nowhere to be found.
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Fleming's truck was found abandoned. He was fired from his job as a battalion chief May 8 after he failed to report to work for several days.
Nick Mitrick, 29, told the Sacramento Bee he has a 5-year-old son with Douglas and has custody of the boy. He said he has not yet told his son his mother is dead.
"That's a tough question," he told the Merced Sun-Star. "It's kind of a thing you want to hide from him as long as possible, wait for the appropriate time. But there's never an appropriate time."
Mitrick acknowledged that Douglas had worked as an escort, something originally made public by Meagan Fleming, Fleming's estranged wife. But he said Douglas was trying to turn her life around and had hoped to marry Fleming.
"She had it hard, she didn't have the best influences in her life," Mitrick said. "It's shocking the way this all went."
