Escapees Wanted in Slayings Still at Large After Gunfight With Police

Two heavily armed prison escapees wanted as murder suspects eluded a posse of 100 law enforcement officers for the second day Tuesday after a four-hour gun battle, authorities said.

The suspects, holed up in wooded terrain about eight miles from Wolf Creek, had been serving time in California for murder and are suspects in two killings last week in Byers, Colo. One of the men had been convicted of killing an Ontario, Calif., police officer.

The gunfight broke out Monday when sheriff’s deputies went to investigate a rolled-over van near Juniper Bay campground that turned out to belong to one of the Colorado slaying victims.

Deputies said they were fired on from terrain above the campground, and in four hours an estimated 200 rounds were expended.

Residents Evacuated

A helicopter and officers from the sheriff’s office, the Highway Patrol, the state Fish and Game Department and federal agencies joined in a cabin-by-cabin search Tuesday. Residents of about 50 homes in the Holter Lake resort area, 30 miles north of Helena, were evacuated.

Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Chuck O’Reilly said the two men were accompanied by a woman, and possibly by two women. His information was based on interviews with campers who had seen the suspects before the shooting.

The suspects were identified as John Whitus Jr., 36, and Steven Miller, 34, who escaped Feb. 21 from the California State Medical Facility at Vacaville, where they had been serving terms for murder.

Miller was sentenced in 1976 for the slaying of two people, one the Ontario police officer.

In Adams County, Colo., authorities said the two men worked for Russell Schwartzmiller, 48, and Grace Kuamoo, 73. The employers were found shot to death Saturday.