An Indiana fugitive who was riding in a tractor-trailer that had been pulled over on a Pennsylvania interstate led authorities on a chase and held them at bay with gunfire for three hours until they shot and killed him, officials said.
That fugitive was 48-year-old Wade Meisberger of Whiteland in Johnson County, according to a Pennsylvania State Police news release.
Meisberger was wanted out of Monroe County, Indiana, for a homicide probation violation, authorities said.
A Monroe County judge filed a petition to revoke Meisberger’s suspended sentence for a 1991 murder and theft case and issued a warrant for his arrest on June 17, according to online court records.
He violated conditions of his probation by failing to report to probation and leaving the state without permission, according to the Monroe County Circuit Court.
Members of a U.S. Marshals Service task force stopped the truck early Monday evening, June 29, on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania.
The driver got out, but Meisberger drove off, leading officers on a chase for miles that ended in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where the truck got stuck in grass near a skating rink. He refused to surrender and “intermittently fired weapons” at troopers during the ensuing standoff, officials said.
Police shot and killed Meisberger. The Pennsylvania State Police and the Luzerne County prosecutors are investigating the shooting.
Meisberger’s criminal history starts nearly three decades ago when he murdered his childhood friend in Monroe County and evaded arrest for more than a year.
Court documents show that Meisberger killed Michael Sawyer, stole his car and fled to Florida in a case that at the time was featured on the TV show “America’s Most Wanted,” according to the Madison (Indiana) Courier.
He was eventually captured, tried in Bloomington and served 15 years in an Indiana prison for the murder and theft.
Meisberger was released from state prison in 2007 and moved to Madison, where he eventually violated probation, evaded arrest again and faked his own death.
In June 2012, officers responding to reports of a man jumping off a Prestonville, Kentucky, bridge found a note and Meisberger’s driver’s license at the scene, according to the The Associated Press.
Meisberger later posted several videos to YouTube about being alive and hiding from authorities. He was arrested in July 2012 at a Madison mobile home park and served about three more years in prison; he was released in April 2015, the AP article said.
He was to remain on probation until August 2027, according to the AP.
In April 2018, while living in Whiteland, Meisberger spoke to inmates at the Pendleton Correctional Facility’s mental health unit about his journey and battling mental health disorders, according to an Indiana Department of Correction social media post.
“In 2007, (Meisberger) was released from IDOC, but as he puts it, ‘I didn’t do well and came back.’ His return to prison may have been the deciding factor in Wade’s new life,” the social media post said. “Wade stated that while at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility he was correctly diagnosed with a mental health condition where he began treatment and therapy.”
The state department titled the post: “From FBI’s Most Wanted to Inspirational Speaker.”
