N.J. Couple Are Arrested In Interstate Death Spree

PHILADELPHIA - Two corpses were found yesterday in a remote corner of Texas, and police said they were the latest victims of a young southern New Jersey couple whose crime spree during the last two weeks blazed a bloody trail from North Carolina to Colorado.

That trail ended Wednesday among the pinion pine and juniper trees atop a 52,000-acre mesa in southwestern Colorado, where John Esposito, 21, of Berlin Township, N.J., and Alicia Woodward, 18, of Evesham Township, N.J., were arrested without incident when a park ranger discovered they were driving a stolen car.

Police in Georgia investigating the case said yesterday that Esposito and Woodward had confessed to killing an elderly Oklahoma City couple, in whose car they had entered Mesa Verde National Park on Wednesday. They were arrested inside the park.

The bodies of the Oklahoma couple - Lawrence Snider, 91, and his wife, Marguarite, 86 - were discovered at 1 p.m. yesterday by a Texas Ranger and members of the Oldham County Sheriff's Department, who were "acting on information," according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Bodies found amid weeds

The Sniders' bodies had been dumped in weeds about six feet high along a dirt road near the New Mexico state line and 700 miles from Oklahoma City, police said. The Sniders had been beaten to death with a tire iron, authorities said.

The Sniders were last seen alive on Sept. 26 in Oklahoma City at a grocery store they patronized, said Capt. Ted Carlton of the city police department. When the Sniders failed to reach their church on Sunday, members of the congregation notified the Sniders' son.

N.C. slaying

A search had been on for Esposito and Woodward, both high-school dropouts, since they were named as suspects in the slaying of Lola Davis, 85, of Lumberton, N.C.

Davis' body was similarly found at the end of a dirt road near a hay field in Morgan County, Ga. Police said Davis, a retired high-school librarian, had been bludgeoned to death there a day after she was taken from a Winn Dixie supermarket parking lot in Lumberton.

Police say the crime spree began after Woodward's car, in which the unemployed couple were traveling to Florida, broke down in Lumberton. The couple had spent a week in Lumberton panhandling. During that period, Woodward, who had a reputation in her neighborhood of fighting with her mother, called home for money. None was offered, according to North Carolina authorities.

Kidnapping alleged

Then, on Sept. 19, the couple spotted Davis, kidnapped her and stole her car, police said.

Esposito and Woodward first came to the attention of police Sept. 20 in Talladega, Ala., a short distance from where Davis' car was found, when an officer stopped them because they appeared to be acting suspiciously. After the officer checked their identities, he took them to a motel.

The couple had checked out of the motel when police made a connection between them and Davis.

Over the next two weeks, the couple moved across the country. Police said they now believe the two abducted the Sniders and used their cash cards in Arizona before circling north into southern Colorado.

Ranger suspicious

The FBI, which took charge of the investigation after the discovery of Davis's body, said yesterday that a park ranger noticed an unattended car at about 1 p.m. Wednesday at Mesa Verde National Park near an area with Indian artifacts that are considered sensitive. The ranger entered the license-plate number in a computer and discovered the car had been stolen. When Esposito and Woodward returned to the car, they were arrested, the FBI said.

Autopsies were scheduled today in Lubbock County, Texas, on the Sniders' bodies, authorities there said.

Henry Solano, U.S. attorney for Colorado, said Esposito and Woodward were being held without bail in La Plata County Jail in Durango following a court appearance yesterday. A detention hearing is scheduled for next Friday in Durango, he said.