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Sandra Yi Reporting Convicted killer James Tolbert wandered the streets of Salt Lake City for weeks until police finally caught up with him.
He strangled his wife in the 80s and then met Ann Poulson while she volunteered at the prison. He's now accused of strangling Poulson in her own home.
Police spent the past two and a half weeks looking for Tolbert. They found him last night in Memory Grove, locked in a shed by maintenance worker Terry Wilkinson. Apparently, this wasn't the first time he had seen Tolbert, or for that matter, had a face-to-face encounter.
The two have been spending time together for the past couple of weeks, even going out in public. But when his friend found out Tolbert was wanted for murder, he set him up inside the shed.
"He was in there, and I closed the shed down like this," Wilkinson demonstrated.
He left James Tolbert inside the shed watching the World Series on a black-and-white TV and smoking a cigarette. Then Wilkinson went to call police.
"I told the police, ‘Here's where he is. The garage door is unlocked. All you got to do is open the garage door, and he's right here,'" Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson, who is homeless, is a volunteer maintenance worker at Memory Grove. He first met Tolbert in prison in 2001 and knew Tolbert by the name "David."
Two weeks ago Tolbert showed up at the park. He stayed with Wilkinson at Wilkinson's camp on the hillside.
"He was kicking it here with me and, of course, I knew nothing about the murder when it happened because I never watch that much TV," Wilkinson explained. "He went down with me downtown a lot. He didn't seem like he was wanted for anything you know, ‘cause he walked in front of people. He went down there and he panhandles for money, you know."
Wilkinson says a worker at a local restaurant tipped him off when he and Tolbert went to out to eat. "She told me, ‘The guy you're hanging out with is a wanted murderer,'" Wilkinson said.
Yesterday, Wilkinson went to the Salt Lake City Police Department and asked to see a picture. "I looked at his picture on the computer, and I go, 'That's the guy. That guy is living with me right now,'" he said.
Later that night, Wilkinson invited Tolbert to watch the baseball game inside the maintenance shed. He's glad he did it.
Authorities were offering a reward, up to $5,000 for Tolbert's arrest, and Wilkinson could be eligible for that.
