A fugitive accused of abducting, raping and beating his own wife on a Sunday night spree through three Southwest Virginia counties wasn’t very good at hiding, authorities said. He was caught by U.S. marshals Friday morning outside his mother’s home in West Virginia.
Jeffrey Brian Medlen, of Chestnut Ridge in Meadowview, Va., was wanted in Smyth County on abduction and domestic assault charges; in Washington County on simple assault and vandalism; and in Tazewell County on rape charges.
Police said that Sunday evening, Medlen and his estranged wife attended a Smyth County church service together, but then he refused to let her out of the car. Police said he drove across the county line into Tazewell County, where his wife reported that she was raped on the side of a back-county road. Back in the car, police said, he continued driving into Washington County.
The woman told police she was beaten while they were driving, but when he stopped for gas off Interstate 81 at Exit 13, she escaped from the car. She ran inside the convenience store and the clerk called authorities.
Medlen fled the scene.
The Smyth County Sheriff’s Office said the couple had been having problems, and the woman was staying with friends in Washington County. At 4 a.m. Sunday a “belligerent” Medlen banged on the side of the friends’ trailer, causing exterior damage. It was that afternoon that she agreed to meet with him, and the pair reconciled.
By the time the Washington County Sheriff’s Office intervened about 9 p.m. Sunday, the wife had a black eye and several bumps and bruises.
On Wednesday, the Smyth County Sheriff’s Office said the woman was fine and at home, but fearful.
Local law enforcement officers sought help from the U.S. marshals on Wednesday, as they suspected Medlen had left the state. Marshals interviewed 15 friends and family members of the couple Thursday, then Friday morning drove three hours to Mercer County, W.Va., to begin the manhunt.
They found Medlen about 11 a.m. in the first place they looked: his mother’s house in Indian Meadows Park, a sprawling, mountainside mobile home community.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Byron L. Schiesz II said when they spotted Medlen’s Volkswagen Passat, they didn’t have to look far. He was standing right next to it outside the mother’s home.
“As a ruse, I stopped and spoke to him for a minute,” Schiesz said. “I asked if he know where so and so’s trailer was. He got distracted and the deputies jumped out and got him on the ground.”
He was taken into custody without incident, and is being held in the Bluefield, W.Va., city jail awaiting extradition to Virginia. Schiesz said it is unclear at this point what county will get him first.
cgalofaro@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
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