Fuck a trial, just shoot him

Rico says there are times when taking the perp alive is too bad, and Alan Baker (yup, Russell's son) has the story in The New York Times:

A suspect wanted in at least a dozen sexual attacks across four states over the last decade was captured in Connecticut by law enforcement agents who had received a tip about his whereabouts, officials said.
Officers and agents of the United States Marshals Service arrested the suspect, Aaron H. Thomas, at 2:15 p.m. Friday on a street in New Haven, Connecticut, authorities said, adding that he had ties to Virginia and had worked as a long-haul trucker.
The string of violence began with a gunpoint attack of a female bicyclist in Maryland in February of 1997, and culminated in the rapes of two teenage trick-or-treaters on Halloween night in 2009 in Prince William County, Virginia, according to a FBI bulletin. In between, there were attacks in Fairfax and Leesburg, Virginia, in Cranston, Rhode Island, and in New Haven, Connecticut, authorities said. They added that even more episodes could eventually be linked to the case. The attacker was referred to as “the East Coast Rapist”.
“We’re sure we have the right person,” First Sergeant Kim D. Chinn of the Prince William County Police Department said.
It was after the Halloween 2009 attack that investigators analyzed strands of recovered DNA evidence “and came up with a hit that matched it to all the other cases,” Sergeant Chinn said. “That is when we knew we had a serial rapist and it was a multi-state investigation.”
Lieutenant Julie Johnson of the New Haven police said in a statement: “Recent information was developed in this case, DNA was collected and subsequently matched by the Connecticut State Forensic Science Lab, confirming that Thomas was the East Coast Rapist.”
A task force was created in December of 2009, and things moved quickly from there, several law enforcement officials said on Saturday. On 25 February, a website dedicated to the cases was established: eastcoastrapist.com.
The FBI issued alerts about the attacker on social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, and posted billboards in eight states (including one in Times Square) showing sketches with a number to phone in tips.
Officials in New Haven and Prince William County had active arrest warrants for Mr. Thomas, according to a news release from the New Haven Police Department. He was charged with first-degree sexual assault, burglary, and risk of injury to a minor in connection with an attack in New Haven in 2007; he was also charged as a fugitive in connection with the Virginia case, the news release said.
Lawyers from the New Haven public defender’s office could not be reached.
The events that led to his arrest began when a person close to Mr. Thomas called with information just after the FBI began its wave of publicity, a law enforcement official said. “The tipster gave good information” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. Mr. Thomas’s name was already on a short list of suspects, the official said. The authorities began pinpointing his past movements, and found he had a speeding ticket near one attack.
They followed him to court in New Haven, where he had gone to appear on an unrelated larceny charge. The next day, he was in custody. On Saturday Mr. Thomas tried to hang himself, the authorities said. He was hospitalized briefly before being returned to detention.
Dorothy Watson, who lives on Hamilton Street in New Haven, said in a phone interview that Mr. Thomas, 39, had been staying with her for about four years, and that she was surprised he had been arrested. A cook at a local hospital, Ms. Watson, 40, said she had met Mr. Thomas as she left work one day. “I was coming out and he was going in,” she said. “He saw me and he decided to come across the street and decided to talk to me.” She said that they had a son together, and that she had several other children. “My kids are devastated over this,” she added.

Rico says that's gotta be a shock for any woman...