Convict Kidnaps Women, Flees Canyon : Manhunt: Escaped criminal foils police roadblocks by driving hostages’ car out of the Arizona national park. The two victims are tied up but unharmed.

Escaped convict Danny Ray Horning kidnaped two women Saturday morning and drove out of Grand Canyon National Park in their rental car, managing to foil roadblocks and the surveillance of more than 300 law enforcement officers, park police reported.

By late afternoon, Horning had left the women tied to a tree, crashed their car and taken off on foot--with officers in pursuit--wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “Fun Run.” The latest chapter in the survivalist’s seven-week flight took him back to the Coconino National Forest, an area that authorities said he knows well because he hid out there shortly after his escape.

As night fell, his pursuers feared that they had lost him again, although they planned to continue their search through the night.

“My opinion is if you’re on his trail and you haven’t caught him in 30 minutes, you aren’t going to catch him,” Lt. Ron Anderson of the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department said.

Horning, 33, has dragged an army of officers and rangers through the Arizona backcountry by stealing cars, taking hostages and using outdoor survival techniques. He escaped May 12 from the state prison in Florence, where he was serving four life terms.

On Saturday, after forcing the two women to drive him out of the park, Horning left them tied to a tree near Red Lake, about 45 miles south of the national park, said park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge. The women, British students in their mid-30s, freed themselves and walked to a store where they reported the incident.

“They were physically unharmed but emotionally devastated,” Anderson said.

Anderson said the victims told detectives Horning was cleanshaven except for a long mustache. They said he had bleached his dark hair blond and was wearing clean clothes.

About 90 minutes after the report was received, a Highway Patrol officer saw the women’s rental car on a highway south of Flagstaff. A chase at speeds up to 100 m.p.h. ensued, Anderson said, during which Horning shot at and struck the officers’ car. No one was hurt, he said.

By 5 p.m., about 50 officers, including FBI agents who rushed to the area by helicopter with their tracking dogs, were scouring a heavily wooded area known as Munds Park, where Horning was last seen. The kidnaped women said the fugitive was wearing red pants with his white T-shirt and a white or tan straw hat.

Authorities were baffled about how Horning managed to escape Grand Canyon National Park, with roadblocks on all main arteries causing hours-long traffic jams for holiday tourists.

But Oltrogge said: “There are a lot of forest service roads out here that he could’ve gotten out on.”