Kansas fugitive nabbed after return from Africa
A Kansas City, Kan., man who eluded arrest on drug charges for more than two years was arrested Thursday after flying back to the United States from Africa.
Wilson Tyler, 51, was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Marshals had tracked Tyler to the west African country of Sierra Leone. Officials said he fled the United States before police could arrest him on a warrant issued in March 2013.
Tyler is charged in U.S. District Court with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and with stealing $150 from an undercover federal agent during a drug transaction.
As a teenager, Tyler was convicted of second-degree murder for the 1980 killing of a Kansas City, Kan., service station clerk. He was convicted of sodomizing another jail inmate while being held in the murder case.
The U.S. Marshals Service said that because of Ebola cases in Sierra Leone, Tyler will being held in a special confinement unit in New York until he is cleared to return to Kansas.
Tony Rizzo: 816-234-4435, @trizzkc
This story was originally published October 23, 2015 at 3:04 PM with the headline "Kansas fugitive nabbed after return from Africa."