Sweethearts in Copter Prison Break Had Boat Waiting Near Border

On the day of their arrest, Ronald McIntosh and Samantha Dorinda Lopez may have been headed for a Washington port near the Canadian border where McIntosh kept a 49-foot ketch, authorities said Monday.

It was that purchase which helped lead to the capture of the prison sweethearts here over the weekend.

When he bought the boat in May, 1985, McIntosh used the alias Lyle Thompson, and managed to arouse considerable suspicion from the sellers. He paid $108,000 in cash and then advised the sellers not to deposit the amount in full because federal law requires banks to report to the Treasury Department all cash transactions exceeding $10,000 cash.

The sellers notified the FBI in Seattle. But authorities were unable to find the ketch. “The boat dropped off the face of the Earth,” Chief Deputy Marshal Robert W. Christman of Seattle said.

But in Sacramento last week, the couple--with McIntosh still using the same alias--managed to arouse further suspicion, this time at a suburban jewelry store, and that led to their dramatic capture.

Shortly after McIntosh engineered Lopez’s daring helicopter escape from federal prison in Pleasanton, the two repeatedly visited Merksamer Jewelers in Citrus Heights, and ended up putting down $4,600 as a deposit for assorted jewelry, including two wedding rings. The store clerks became suspicious and, fearing that the check might bounce, notified police. The signature on that check was Lyle Thompson.

And so was the invoice McIntosh had signed when he rented a helicopter to practice for the escape attempt. The flight instructor later recognized McIntosh’s photograph from news accounts of the escape and called police.

The FBI and the U.S. marshals then sent out an alert on a nationwide law enforcement Teletype that McIntosh might be using the alias of Lyle Thompson.

In Seattle, police quickly recognized the alias as the man who had paid $108,000 cash for the 49-foot ketch they could not find. Stepping up their efforts, police found the boat at 1 a.m. Friday, moored at the Port of Bellingham, near the Canadian border.

According to port authorities, the boat had been sailed from nearby Anacortes to Bellingham on Aug. 20--at a time when McIntosh was in prison at Pleasanton. Authorities now believe that whoever sailed it evidently had been acting on McIntosh’s instructions.

These and other details emerged Monday as McIntosh, 42, and Lopez, 37, made brief appearances before a federal magistrate here. Neither spoke during their separate appearances before U.S. Magistrate Esther Mix.

The couple are scheduled to be back in court on Thursday before being sent to San Francisco to face charges stemming from the escape.

In an interview Monday, Chief Deputy Marshal Richard Bippus of San Francisco said the trail of Lopez and McIntosh remained cold for almost two days after their midday escape on Nov. 5. Investigators had found the helicopter abandoned 15 miles from the prison. But there were few clues left behind.

But they now say that McIntosh and Lopez had spent most, if not all, of their time in Sacramento-area motels, moving almost nightly and ending up in a commercial side of town noted for its fast-food restaurants and small shopping centers.

Growing Anxiety Suspected

At the jewelry store last week, the couple were told that the engraved wedding rings would be ready on Monday. But police speculated that they were growing anxious and had hoped that the rings would be ready before then, and therefore returned on Saturday. “They were just antsy because they knew everybody was looking for them,” said U.S. Marshal Arthur Van Court of Sacramento.

U.S. marshals began staking out the jewelry store in Citrus Heights late Friday afternoon.

“The only thing that kept them in the area was the engraving of the wedding rings,” Van Court said.

McIntosh had been considered a “model prisoner” until he disappeared on Oct. 28, after he had been given a one-way bus ticket from the federal prison at Pleasanton with instructions to travel unsupervised to the minimum-security prison at Lompoc. He is a twice-convicted swindler.

He never appeared at Lompoc. Instead, the former Vietnam helicopter pilot commandeered a helicopter from a San Jose charter company, dropped off the pilot and returned to Pleasanton to pick up Lopez.

Air-Piracy Charge

McIntosh, who had another 15 months to serve in federal prison for fraud and parole violations, now faces 20 years in prison if convicted of the new charges--air piracy, plus five more for escape. He was imprisoned after pleading no-contest to charges that he bilked 2,500 investors out of $18 million through the now defunct First International Trading Co., which he co-founded with a man he met while in prison in the early 1980s at Lompoc.

Lopez, who was serving time for kidnaping and robbery that ended in murder, faces a charge of escape.

Also on Monday, state and federal authorities began efforts to seize the ketch and freeze as many as three bank accounts held by McIntosh.

It also was revealed that McIntosh has land and an unfinished home in Estacada, Ore., a small community between Portland and Mount Hood. Officials hoped to return the money to clients who were bilked out of $18 million by investing in McIntosh’s precious-metals firm.

Authorities said Monday that even if the couple had escaped from California, they probably would have been apprehended in Washington. “We felt that eventually they would show up at this boat and we would get them,” said David Stanton, chief deputy marshal in Sacramento.