Two Carroll County fugitives ? one a registered sex offender ? were arrested Thursday after police found them in South Carolina, where they had taken a 16-year-old girl, authorities said.
Irvin Baker, 23, was found in a Greenville, S.C., hotel room with the missing girl when policearrested him on an outstanding Carroll County probation violation warrant, police said.
The girl, who was reported missing to the Carroll County Sheriff?s Office, was not injured, and police said they had no reason to believe she was with Baker against her will.
Police also said a sex-offender sweep Tuesday led them to Jeffrey Paul Gunter, 25, at his place of employment in Greenville. Gunter, a registered sex offender who is listed with a Westminster address, hasn’t been living in the city since Memorial Day. Gunter was supposed to have alerted police if he was going to move from his home in the 1100 block of Singer Drive, police said.
The girl was reported as a runaway, said Lt. Phil Kasten, a sheriff?s office spokesman.
Troopers from the state police Westminster barracks and the Maryland State Police Computer Crimes Child Recovery Unit worked with the Greenville County Sheriff?s Department and arrested Gunter at his place of employment Thursday.
Gunter and Baker were being held Thursday night at the Greenville County (S.C.) Detention Center awaiting extradition to Maryland.
In Maryland, a first-time violation of the sex offender registry laws is a misdemeanor carrying a term of three years incarceration, a $5,000 fine or both. Any subsequent offense is a felony carrying a term of incarceration of five years, a $10,000 fine or both.
Are registered sex offenders living in your neighborhood? Go to the state’s Sex Offender Registery to find out.
