Auburn girl found safe; father is held

They told the neighbors their names were Tom and Amy.

But according to the U.S. Marshals Service, it was Mark Supanich and his 9-year-old daughter, Shania, who moved into a rural Montana house two months ago after more than two years on the run from Auburn police.

Supanich, who had led authorities on a manhunt from Washington to Montana to Arizona and back to Montana, was arrested just after 5 p.m. Tuesday in a sparsely populated neighborhood about 10 miles north of Helena, Montana's historic capital city.

He later told deputies he was getting ready to run again and had planned to leave Helena this week for an unknown destination, said Dan Orr, a supervisory deputy U.S. Marshal in Billings.

Supanich was in the midst of a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife when he allegedly failed to return his daughter to her mother after a two-day visit in April 2004. He was charged in King County Superior Court with first-degree custodial interference and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Eric Robertson, the U.S. Marshal in Seattle, said at the time that a judge told Supanich that he would not be allowed to see his daughter unless he participated in court-ordered anger-management therapy and parenting classes. By the time the judge had granted sole custody of Shania to her mother, Sandy Supanich, the father and daughter had disappeared, he said.

Mark and Shania Supanich were profiled on the TV show "America's Most Wanted," and Shania's story was featured on a Web site operated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

In April 2005, the Pacific Northwest Fugitive Apprehension Task Force, which is led by the U.S. Marshals Service with members from several local law-enforcement agencies, was asked to help with the search.

Task-force members regularly track down violent fugitives, Robertson said. Increasingly, though, U.S. Marshals are becoming involved in child-abduction cases in which a noncustodial parent or other family member is suspected of taking a child, he said.

In the Supanich case, U.S. Marshals here contacted their counterparts in Montana, asking deputies to check on the house outside Helena after learning that Mark Supanich had a friend from Washington who had moved there.

A deputy went out to the neighborhood of about a dozen houses and questioned an elderly couple, who were shown photographs and identified Supanich and Shania as the father and daughter who had moved in across the street, Orr said. As they were talking, Shania, who had been walking her dog, "ran over to the deputy" and told him who she was, he said.

"It was kind of an emotional time — the girl broke down and said she loved her dad," Orr said.

Unbeknown to the deputy, one of the neighbors called Supanich, who was working at a nearby construction site installing siding on a house, Orr said. Supanich called back and in a phone conversation with the deputy, Orr said, the deputy convinced Supanich to turn himself in.

He was booked into the Lewis and Clark County Jail in Helena. Officials don't know whether Supanich will fight extradition to Washington.

Shania was healthy and there were no indications she had been injured or mistreated, said Robertson.

"It's an extra added bonus," Robertson said of Supanich's arrest. "Not only do you catch the bad guy, you have the extra added achievement of being able to reunite a little girl and her mom, who's been worried sick about her for 21/2 years."

Sandy Supanich left Auburn early Wednesday and was driving to Helena to see her daughter, Robertson said. She could not be reached for comment.

According to public records, the man who lives at the house where Supanich and Shania had been staying moved to Montana in 2004. He previously lived in Maple Valley, King County, and Cle Elum in Kittitas County, the records show.

Orr said authorities haven't decided if he'll face charges for sheltering Supanich and his daughter. The Seattle Times is not naming the man because he has not been accused of a crime.

Contacted by phone Wednesday, the man declined to comment.

Asked about Mark and Shania Supanich, a neighbor said, "I don't know anybody by those names. I knew them as Tom and Amy."

The neighbor, who asked that his name not be used to protect his privacy, said he hired Supanich to do some siding work, but otherwise, didn't know him well. The neighbor said he spoke with a deputy U.S. Marshal on Tuesday, but declined to say if he was with the deputy when Shania ran up.

"It was all a shock to me," he said of Supanich's arrest.

"The only thing I know [about Shania] is she loves her dad and she loves animals," he said. "She's a happy little girl."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com