Manhunters are looking for two “persons of interest” in the Dec. 14 slaying of a young man at Berry Park.

What James Fenderson IV and D’Yuntre Wight, both 17, may not realize is that they are in the crosshairs of manhunters armed with the latest technology and years of experience.

“Justice delayed is justice denied” is not just a cliché to the family of Juan “Junie” Gomez Jr. 18, who was gunned down in a car at the city park.

 “I just feel so useless,” Gomez’s mother, Valerie Long, told the Style Magazine. “I just want to get a phone call. I want to know that things are progressing.”

WHERE ARE THEY?

Fugitives sometimes change their appearance, their names, live in remote areas or “hide in plain sight.” They sometimes sever ties, use throw-away phones and avoid surveillance cameras.

Investigators follow credit card money trails, tap phones, look for life patterns and check with other law enforcement agencies.

Luck and diligence help.

Last January, Lady Lake Sgt. Michelle Bilbrey captured one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives during a routine traffic stop when she noticed the license plate on his vehicle was not valid.

Donald Eugene Fields II was wanted on charges of child sex trafficking and child rape in Missouri. He had been a fugitive since 2022 when he failed to appear for a court date.

JOINT EFFORTS

Because the Berry Park murder is still under investigation it is not clear if Leesburg police officers are getting assistance from U.S. Marshals and other agencies. It would be shocking if the Lake County Sheriff’s Warrants squad was not involved.

The squad has five deputies, including a K-9 and handler, and four civilian recordkeepers, says supervisor Sgt. Charles Pendergrass.

Besides filling out the warrant paperwork, the clerks compile files of all kinds of “pattern of life” information, like prior crimes, family members and hangout locations.

The unit is basically self-sufficient. Squad members have computers in their cars, shields, battering rams, fire truck wrecking bars and drones.

They can link up with the sheriff’s real- time crime center, which is staffed with analysts and deputies who can access their body cams and coordinate with the communications center, helicopters, and SWAT, for example.

Workers in the center “can keep typing while we’re watching the door,” Pendergrass says.

License plate readers are very helpful. They aided in the capture of suspect Vickie Williams in Savannah, Ga., according to court records. She is charged with murdering Darryl and Sharon Getman in their Waterman Village home on New Years Eve 2022.

“If an officer takes a picture of a license plate I can have it in an hour,” Pendergrass says.

“It’s a different world now.”

The unit cooperates with state and federal law enforcement agencies across the nation. The sheriff’s office has assigned one deputy from special investigations to the U.S. Marshals Office and another to Homeland Security.

One of the mostly publicized arrests happened on April 30, 2023, when the Sheriff’s Office and a Marshals fugitive task force arrested Zachery Waldo at a Mount Dora hotel parking lot. He was on trial for DUI manslaughter in the deaths of three family members and injuring a child when he left on a lunch break and never came back.

It wasn’t easy. A week after his disappearance, SWAT and U.S. Marshals relying on “good intelligence” from a confidential source, surrounded a house on East Street rented by Waldo’s pregnant girlfriend. They fired teargas but he was not in the house.

 They questioned the woman, who shared a 9 year-old child with Waldo. She was later arrested for lying to police.

Authorities believe family members helped hide Alex Lopez in a Kissimmee motel after he killed Leesburg convenience store owner Raied Shihadeh in a 2024 robbery. His face was clearly visible on surveillance video and detectives received several tips, including from Wildwood police about his identity. Lopez was sentenced to life without parole in December. Relatives faced their own charges for allegedly helping him.

COMMUNITY IN FEAR

Mount Dora residents were terrorized in the late 1990s when a woman out for exercise was attacked by a knife-wielding man. Another woman was the victim of a home-invasion robbery and two elderly men were murdered in their homes. One of the men had his throat slashed. The other was smothered with a pillow.

Police eventually captured a group of teens responsible for the home-invasions, including 19-year-old ringleader, Roosevelt “Red” Hackney, but not before he fled, leaving the city paralyzed with fear.

“You can only hide for so long. He’ll make a mistake and we’ll get him arrested,” Mount Dora Police Chief Norman Warren promised.

“Most bad guys tend to stay close to where they are from because they have friends and relatives who can help them out,” Warren says. “You get off somewhere in the world and you don’t have anybody to help you.”

He was captured a week later in Miami at an uncle’s house after a tipster alerted FDLE and Metro-Dade law enforcement officers.

“I didn’t do it,” he told reporters. A jury disagreed and he was sentenced to life in prison.

KEEPING SOCIETY SAFE

Hunting bad guys is a tough, dangerous job.

“Our world is changing and not for the better,” Pendergrass says. “We keep our citizens safe. We’re all accountable.