UPDATE : 2 Killers Elude Police in Costly Florida Manhunts

Despite massive manhunts that have involved more police--and cost more money--than any two criminal cases in South Florida history, two killers are still on the loose. Police are frustrated, and so, too, are taxpayers, who have watched the costs of the pursuits climb past $1.5 million.

Now, some of the reward money is about to vanish as well.

State police have set an expiration deadline for next Monday for the $30,000 bounty on the head of Juan Fleitas, a 30-year-old convicted murderer who broke out of a Belle Glade, Fla., prison on Jan. 2. Of the four other killers who tunneled under the fence with Fleitas, one was shot dead by police and three were caught within days.

“It’s a hefty sum, so if someone is sitting on information, we hope they come forward now,” says Lee Condon, an agent of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. “He’s not existing in a vacuum. Someone is helping him with lodging and food.”

The object of a second manhunt is known only as the Tamiami Strangler, the person believed responsible for killing five women and a man, all cocaine-addicted prostitutes who worked a west Miami section of U.S. 41, known as the Tamiami Trail. The first victim was found Sept. 17; the sixth on Jan. 12.

For information leading to an arrest in the strangler case, police had offered a reward of up to $11,000, which includes $10,000 from the department’s own trust fund of money seized from drug dealers. That gesture is unprecedented here. But in almost three months since the strangler last struck, the leads have dropped off, and the cost of the investigation has soared past $1 million.

“Clearly,” says Metro-Dade Police Sgt. Felix Jimenez, “this is going to be a long-term investigation. These cases are hard to solve.”

Although the cases are not linked, they are consuming manpower and the money needed to pay overtime. Because of the dangers each killer poses, and the publicity each has generated, dozens of officers have been pulled from other investigations.

To University of Miami law professor Jonathan Simon, the hunts for Fleitas and the Tamiami Strangler illustrate what he calls “the high cost of Americans’ distorted picture of crime and punishment, and how we use our limited resources.” While the high profiles of both cases have led to the public expectation that police do anything they can to catch the killers, Simon says, “in truth, most crimes solve themselves.”

Jimenez agrees that the investigation into the strangler murders has meant pulling officers off other cases. “This has taken a lot of time,” Jimenez says. “We have had 34 officers full time on the Tamiami case, but we can only go on so long. (This week) we will cut back by half.”

“It is frustrating, not just to law enforcement, but to the community in general,” adds Metro Sgt. John Roper, who heads up Crimestoppers Anonymous, the Police Department’s telephone tips line. “Homicide has put in a lot of long hours and followed leads all over Florida and the United States on this.”

If anything, the Fleitas case has been even more frustrating, since police have the fugitive’s mug shot, his case history and a long list of relatives and friends. He has been sighted several times in the Miami area. In January, police paid $874 to hire a plane to tow a banner begging Fleitas to give himself up.

At one point, the multi-agency task force set up to track down Fleitas included 100 officers and a pack of bloodhounds. The cost of the chase so far: about $400,000.

Times researcher Anna M. Virtue contributed to this story.