In an armed standoff, Fitzgerald was killed, Sheriff David Morgan of Escambia County said. The woman was later released unharmed in Birmingham, Ala.
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Authorities declined to say whether Fitzgerald or Harper engaged the officers with a weapon. They also wouldn’t say whether Harper was armed or the circumstances surrounding her shooting, other than confirming she was used as a human shield.
“The sheriff office has armed guards and we are in the process of arresting her on those charges”, Eddins said. They are suspected of multiple kidnappings and robberies. The couple then left the vehicle and tried to enter an occupied home, Morgan said.
That crime scene is very close to where Fitzgerald and Harper were last seen crossing into Alabama.
Escambia County police are also trying to determine whether they were involved in a robbery at a Piggly Wiggly market.
The string of crimes began on Sunday, February 1 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, when the couple allegedly kidnapped a hotel clerk, stole his vehicle, drove to Vestavia Hills, Alabama.
Dease said he chatted the fugitives up during the two-hour ordeal, talking about a tornado that had devastated their hometown of Joplin and their plans to head to Florida. During that time, they held a Pensacola family hostage and eventually fled in the family’s red pickup truck, he said.
In Hoover that morning, with the clerk still with them, Fitzgerald allegedly pointed a gun at a woman in the parking lot of a McDonald’s restaurant and demanded the keys to her vehicle, Hoover police Capt. Gregg Rector said.
“It ended just as I had expected it to end, but I’m just glad it is over and now the healing for everyone involved can begin”, Kyle Dease, the night clerk who was kidnapped said.
“They were telling us why they were here”, he said.
Sheriff Morgan would not say whether Fitzgerald fired any shots at officers.
On Monday, Fitzgerald and Harper were spotted about 250 miles away in Perry, Georgia, where they held up and robbed a gas station, police said. It was believed they were responsible for two additional robberies that took place in Walnut Hills and Destin, Fla., on Wednesday.
Before Thursday’s face-off with cops, the U.S. Marshal had asked the public for help in finding the pair, focusing on Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Missouri.
Dubbed a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde by a federal marshal, Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Harper, both 30, started a multi-state crime spree on January 26 with the theft of a 2009 Cadillac STS sports vehicle from a Joplin area used auto dealer. Morgan also warned against glamorizing the pair as “Bonnie and Clyde” after their story grabbed media attention.
“Like most shooting incidents, what was a matter of seconds seemed like a matter of minutes”, Morgan said during a news conference Friday.
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“There’s nothing glamorous about death. There is nothing glamorous about taking hostages”.
