After 11 years on the run, a West Virginia fugitive’s luck ran out in Miami, and it was old-fashioned mail that helped do him in.
Federal marshals say David Buzzard, 76, who was indicted in the Northern District of West Virginia in April 2015 on a federal charge of possessing child pornography, was located in Ecuador and taken into custody after being deported to the United States. Authorities say the arrest in Miami this week ends more than a decade of evasion that began after the indictment. Buzzard is now awaiting transport back to West Virginia to face the federal charge.
According to a U.S. Marshals Service press release, the Marshals' Mountain State Fugitive Task Force developed leads that placed Buzzard in Cuenca, Ecuador, then worked with international partners to secure his deportation. The release says the U.S. Embassy in Quito, the Ecuadorian National Police and Ecuadorian migration authorities provided substantial assistance in arranging the deportation. Marshals took him into custody in Miami, where he was being held pending transportation back to West Virginia.
As reported by CBS Pittsburgh, Marshals began working on Buzzard's whereabouts in 2018 and learned he had been using a third-party business in North Carolina to receive, scan and forward his mail to Cuenca. Investigators say that paper trail helped confirm his location. CBS reports Buzzard was arrested on May 6 and that it was not immediately clear when he will be extradited back to West Virginia. The outlet's account closely tracks the details in the Marshals' announcement.
How investigators tracked him
Marshals say the break in the case came from a decidedly low-tech source: postal mail. Investigators traced deliveries to the North Carolina business that was scanning and forwarding Buzzard's mail to Cuenca, then passed that lead to the Marshals' Office of International Operations. That office confirmed his whereabouts and coordinated with Ecuadorian authorities, cooperation that led to his deportation to the United States and his arrest shortly after arrival in Miami.
What happens next
Buzzard remains in federal custody pending transfer and prosecution on the 2015 indictment, officials say. Federal law treats possession of child pornography as a serious offense, with statutory penalties and sentencing guidelines outlined by the Department of Justice. Local prosecutors in the Northern District of West Virginia will decide when to seek formal extradition and how to move the case forward.
