Spree that began at St. E's ends with surrender

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The inmate abducted an Austintown man from St. Elizabeth's parking lot.

STAFF AND WIRE REPORT

YOUNGSTOWN — Police estimate it took federal prisoner Billy Jack Fitzmorris just 70 seconds to sprint out of St. Elizabeth Health Center and begin a crime spree that led to a Columbus suburb where he was captured.

Fitzmorris, using a homemade knife, overpowered and took the gun of David Johnson, 33, a Northeast Ohio Correctional Center guard, on the eighth floor of the hospital Monday morning, according to Youngstown Police Department reports.

Fitzmorris then took another guard, Brian Morgan, 27, and two nurses, Tina Jones, 44, and Francine Smith, 24, hostage for about 15 minutes. Smith is pregnant, police said.

According to the reports, Fitzmorris repeatedly threatened the hostages and said he was waiting for his brother to pick him up. (There is no evidence yet that any of Fiztmorris' family was involved in the plan, Deputy U.S. Marshal Dean Michael said Monday evening.)

"I don't want to hurt anybody, but I'll blow your brains out if you don't do what I say," Fitzmorris told the hostages, according to statements.

Carjacking

Fitzmorris then took Johnson's pants, shirt, jacket and cap before fleeing the hospital and carjacking Richard Orto, 54, of Austintown, in the parking lot. The man had come to the hospital to pick up his mother, Michael said.

Fitzmorris took Orto and set off for central Ohio. Orto was able to escape when Fitzmorris stopped at a convenience store. Fitzmorris then robbed two banks in central Ohio, officials said.

Officers saw Fitzmorris driving on a freeway west of Columbus and attempted to pull him over but were unsuccessful, and he wrecked the car he was driving at an intersection in Hilliard before kicking down the door to a home where he held two women hostage, Columbus police said.

One of the two went out a second-story window and jumped from a porch roof, Hilliard Chief Rodney Garnett said. She was taken to a hospital but was not seriously injured, he said.

Hilliard police identified the woman held hostage by Fitzmorris as Karen Zappitelli, 42, of Columbus, and the woman who fled through the window as Geneva Erb, 45, of Hilliard, an employee of an accounting business operated out of the home. A sign on the building had the name John Zappitelli.

Fitzmorris, 34, came peacefully out of a room in the home around 4 p.m. after negotiating with police for about two hours, authorities said.

Fitzmorris was at St. Elizabeth's for treatment of a gash on his head.

Candace Rivera, public information officer at NOCC, a private prison on the East Side of Youngstown, acknowledged that Fitzmorris had been taken to the hospital last week and then returned Saturday. She declined to discuss his medical ailments or whether the head injury was self-inflicted.

Fitzmorris had been at NOCC since Feb. 23. Federal court records show he was indicted in July 2006. He pleaded guilty in January to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and his sentencing is pending.

Police said his criminal history includes burglary, robbery, possession of criminal tools and receiving stolen property.

In Youngstown, officers and federal agents from all over Mahoning and Trumbull counties converged at the hospital Monday morning, along with a search dog from Boardman police.

Tina Creighton, a spokeswoman for St. Elizabeth's, said authorities searched the block-long complex for Fitzmorris, room by room, for several hours. The 400 patients would have noticed increased security, but no care was interrupted, she said.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007