VALDOSTA, Ga. -- Nevada police apprehended a drifter in the death of an Iowa educator shot once in the back of the head and dumped along a logging trail in southern Georgia.
The Lowndes County Sheriff's Department and Omaha, Neb., police said Walter G. Ellis, 40, was arrested Friday night by Nevada state troopers near Las Vegas on a warrant issued in the death of L. Harmon Tucker, 55, an Omaha resident who worked across the state line in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
Investigators said Ellis, sitting in Tucker's 1986 Ford Escort at a rest area, was being held pending extradition proceedings.
Lowndes County sheriff's investigators Thursday placed Tucker's car on the national stolen vehicle registry.
Ellis is named in a warrant for murder, armed robbery, auto theft and possession of a firearm during commission of a felony in the death of Tucker, whose body was found 7 miles east of Valdosta Monday.
Sheriff's Capt. Billy Selph has theorized Tucker was killed in the Valdosta area and his body dumped along the backwoods trail where it was spotted by a hunter. Tests by the Georgia Crime Lab in Decatur revealed Tucker was killed late Sunday, Oct. 30.
The body was identified through fingerprints after the name Tucker was foundwritten with a laundry marker inside the pants.
Tucker, supervisor of vocational education for the Council Bluffs School District, last was seen Oct. 28 cashing a check at a bank in Omaha where his wife reported him missing when he did not return home.
Lt. Larry Roberts of the Omaha police homicide unit said Tucker and Ellis probably left Omaha together.
'We're trying to confirm that,' Roberts said. 'We're assuming he probably was abducted from here. We're still trying to find out where he met this guy.'
Selph said there was no identification on the body but Tucker was wearing a 14-karat gold wedding ring.
Tucker, the Council Bluffs Optimist Club's educator of the year, attended a college fair at Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs Oct. 28 as part of his duties as chairman of the Southeast Iowa Area Planning Council for Vocational Education.
