Jeff Waters
Suwannee Democrat
Live Oak —
Two suspects in the murder of a McAlpin family were arrested without incident early Thursday at a state park campground in southern Minnesota, Suwannee County Sheriff Tony Cameron said.
James Lindsey Howze, 38 and Lonnie Robert Munn, 47, were taken into custody at 3:40 Eastern time, Cameron said at a Thursday morning press conference.
Cameron said he met with members of his staff, agents with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and members of the U.S. Marshal Service Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force.
“During our meeting we received a tip that James Lindsey Howze and Lonnie Robert Munn were possibly in St. Charles, Minnesota,” said Cameron. “Contact was made with the U.S. Marshal Service in that area and the Winona County Sheriff’s Office.”
Cameron said a 1995 Dodge truck, owned by Munn’s girlfriend, was found in the Whitewater State Park in Winona County.
Cameron said the pair and the truck were spotted on video surveillance at a convenience store in Winona County.
“Surveillance footage found that Howze and Munn were in a travel trailer,” Cameron said.
The travel trailer, he said, was owned by a local woman the two “charmed” into letting them use.
Cameron said once the two were found, a local SWAT team and other officers took them into custody.
Winona County Sheriff Dave Brand told the Rochester, Minn. Post-Bulletin that Howze and Munn were asleep within when authorities converged on the travel trailer.
One witness told a Post-Bulletin reporter that she was sleeping in a tent when she heard gunfire and shouting by police around 2 a.m.
Cameron said at least one gun was found in the travel trailer but believes another will also be located. He also said that he believes the two were on the run alone, and that they had shortened their hair.
“I know they had longer hair in the past,” he said.
Howze and Munn are charged with the Aug. 25 murder of Joseph Militello Jr., 57; his wife Nancy Militello, 68; and their nephew Angelo Rosales, 32, in their McAlpin home on 172nd Street.
The three were found by an employee of the family, which operated several businesses including scrap metal and a used car operation.
Cameron previously said the three were found in one room lying face down, side-by-side, each with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Cameron said widespread press reports of the three being tied up are false.
He said one gun was used in the murders but it isn’t yet known who pulled the trigger.
Cameron said money was the motive for the crime and said he believed “the murders and the robbery was planned.”
A third suspect, Keith Allen Hughes, 25, was arrested Aug. 27 for conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Hughes is said to be a former employee of the Militellos.
The arrests of Howze and Munn come just hours before a memorial service for the three victims at Daniels Funeral Home in Live Oak. A second service is scheduled for Friday in Dade City, where the three will be buried.
Howze and Munn were each wanted on three counts of first degree murder, and one count each of home invasion while armed with a firearm; conspiracy to commit home invasion while armed with a firearm; and conspiracy to commit first degree murder while armed with a firearm.
Cameron said he is not sure if the two have confessed to the murders.
