Sheriff’s official: ‘No reason to believe’ fugitive couple from Ariz. are in small Ark. town

Official says no reason to think fugitives in Ark.

GENTRY, Ark. — A sheriff’s department official says there’s “no reason to believe” an escaped Arizona inmate and his fiancee are in a small Arkansas town.

Law enforcement agencies swarmed Gentry, Ark., after a couple robbed a beauty salon there Wednesday.

But Benton County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Doug Gay says there’s no reason to think John McCluskey and Casslyn Welch committed the crime.

McCluskey and Welch have eluded authorities since he and two other inmates escaped from an Arizona prison July 30. They were last seen in Montana.

Gay says the Arkansas salon owner who was robbed says photographs of the couple don’t match the couple who were in her shop. And he says a relative of one of the fugitives no longer lives in Gentry.

But he says an extensive search is ongoing.

(This version CORRECTS date of escape to July 30, not June 30.)