POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. -- A man caught shoplifting turkey breasts from a supermarket has been identified by police as the white supremacist wanted in the slaying of a black sailor in Florida who had just returned from fighting in the Persian Gulf.
Officers responded to a report of two shoplifters being held by a security guard in the parking lot of a supermarket in Poughkeepsie, 75 miles north of New York City, at 5:35 p.m. Tuesday, police said.
George David Loeb, 34, and his wife, Barbara Helen Loeb, 29, of Jacksonville, Fla., were being held on charges they stole $3.35 worth of turkey breasts, police said.
A computer check by police disclosed that Loeb was wanted in the slaying of Petty Officer Harold J. Mansfield Jr., 22, an air controlman third class, who was shot and killed May 17 in a grocery store parking lot in Neptune Beach, Fla., south of Jacksonville.
Mansfield, of Oklahoma City and assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga, had just returned to Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville from duty in the Persian Gulf.
Neptune Beach police did not have a motive for the slaying, but there were indications the shooting resulted from a racial altercation following an argument over a near-collision of their cars.
Police said the victim, who is black, was involved in a dispute with a red-haired white man, described as in his mid-30s, over 6 feet tall and weighing about 170 pounds.
Witnesses said the suspect uttered racial slurs at Mansfield and then shot him when he picked up a brick, police said.
Authorities said Loeb, a white supremacist with a history of arrests and confrontations with blacks, is a leader of the local branch of the Church of the Creator, a racist group based in Otto, N.C.
Florida authorities said Loeb was arrested twice, in November 1990, after a black woman said he threatened to shoot her and her daughter, and again in January 1991, after he got in a fistfight with a black neighbor.
Loeb fled Jacksonville with his wife following the slaying of Mansfield, which was dramatized on Fox television's 'America's Most Wanted,' authorities said.
In the Poughkeepsie arrest, a loaded .25-caliber semi-automatic handgun was found in Mrs. Loeb's handbag, and police impounded the Loeb's car, a 1969 Mercury, which officials said was believed to have been used in the Florida slaying.
Loeb was charged as a fugitive from justice for the Florida slaying, while both Loebs were charged with petit larceny in the theft of the turkey breasts, police said.
He also was charged with assault for allegedly striking the supermarket security guard as he tried to escape, and she was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, police said.
