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Mountainhome, Pa. • Scott Malkowski, a task force commander with the U.S. Marshals Service, spied a figure moving from the woods toward an abandoned airplane hangar in the Pocono Mountains. Looking at his face, his black hat and fleece, and his height and weight, Malkowski was certain he had his man.
"Suspect," he told the two operators by his side, and they fanned out on both side of their quarry, who had no idea he'd just been spotted. Hidden by tall grass, Malkowski moved stealthily toward his target.
Eric Frein didn't stand a chance.
The Marshals Service was one of several state and federal law enforcement agencies that took part in the intensive manhunt for Frein — the survivalist and marksman charged in a deadly sniper attack outside the Blooming Grove state police barracks — and wound up nabbing him on the 48th day of the search.
Frein had an initial court appearance Friday morning and remained jailed without bail on murder and other charges in the Sept. 12 ambush that killed Cpl. Bryon Dickson and critically wounded Trooper Alex Douglass.
He did not have a lawyer and was not asked to enter a plea. The district attorney plans to seek the death penalty.
Until his capture around 6 p.m. Thursday, Frein had some residents beginning to wonder if law enforcement was up to the task, given the rugged terrain of the Poconos and the evident skill with which he eluded dogs, thermal-imaging cameras and teams of heavily armed officers.
But Scott Kimball never had a doubt.
"We expected to find him," said Kimball, 48, a Virginia-based member of the U.S. Marshals' special operations group.
On Thursday, Kimball was stationed in a command post while Malkowski, 44, and other members of the team worked to clear an abandoned resort. About two hours in, Malkowski and two others approached the hangar at the old Birchwood-Pocono Airpark.
"We just had a hunch that if we were on the run, this is a place we would hide," he said.
Once Frein was spotted, Malkowski and his team sneaked up on the fugitive. They were about 25 yards away when Frein finally realized he wasn't alone.
Malkowski identified himself as law enforcement and ordered Frein, who was unarmed but had weapons in the hangar, to get on the ground.
He made no attempt to flee and didn't put up a fight.
"He had nowhere to go. There is nothing he could've done," Malkowski said, adding: "From what I saw, he felt defeated because we'd won. We'd defeated him."
Frein, 31, could be seen with a gash on the bridge of his nose and a scrape over his left eye. Malkowski and Kimball said he suffered the injuries while marshals had him down on the pavement.