Anthony Pease is seen in a Jan. 9 booking photo.

Photo courtesy Larimer County, Colorado, Sheriff's Office

After more than two months on the run from law enforcement, a Byron man wanted for alleged sexual crimes has been captured: Anthony L. Pease, 39, was taken into custody on Friday morning in Ft. Collins, Colorado.

Powell Police Chief Jim Rhea posted the news to the department’s Facebook page shortly after learning of the arrest, “basically to ease people’s minds,” he said. Rhea said he knew there were a lot of people in Powell and the surrounding areas who were concerned, “and rightfully so.”

Authorities in Big Horn County have charged Pease with six felony sex crimes involving a minor and obtained a warrant for the former Powell resident’s arrest in early November, according to information released by law enforcement. However, Pease reportedly fled when the Big Horn County Sheriff’s Office attempted to arrest him, kicking off a lengthy and extensive manhunt.

Although he’s now in custody, Big Horn County Sheriff Ken Blackburn said the investigation into Pease is ongoing, with a potential for “multiple additional charges.” 

“Pease will be returned to Wyoming custody” to answer to the pending allegations, Blackburn said Friday in a Facebook post.

Blackburn said many agencies in both Wyoming and Montana were involved in the search for Pease, which included everything from checking vacant properties in Park County to searching by air with drones.

Powell police assisted in the early days of the search by speaking to some of the people who’d last been in contact with Pease, but “it expanded out of jurisdiction very quickly,” Rhea said.

With Pease still at large in mid-November, the U.S. Marshals Service issued a nationwide call for information about Pease’s whereabouts — offering $1,000 and then $2,000 in reward money.

The Marshals Service cautioned that Pease had “violent tendencies.” Court records show he battered and falsely imprisoned a former girlfriend in Powell in 2016 and strangled a different girlfriend in rural Cody in 2019. At the time of his recent flight from law enforcement, Pease was still on parole for felony strangulation of a household member; he’d been granted parole roughly six months before Big Horn County authorities charged him with the new sex crime allegations.

In early December, Blackburn told the Lovell Chronicle that it was “clear” Pease was getting help on the run, telling the paper “some people were harboring him and assisting him as a fugitive.” The sheriff warned then that those individuals could also be charged with a crime.

Authorities say they verified a sighting of Pease in Byron on Dec. 13, but he managed to disappear again. However, his luck ran out Friday morning, when U.S. Marshals, Ft. Collins, Colorado, Police and Larimer County, Colorado, Sheriff’s personnel nabbed him without incident.

In his Facebook post, Blackburn expressed thanks to a long list of agencies, law enforcement officers and private individuals for “their tireless efforts to bring Pease to justice.” The sheriff also said law enforcement couldn’t have done it without the support of the public, which had shared information about the search far and wide.

“This is an example of people coming together to protect the vulnerable in our community,” Blackburn said.

As of Monday, records showed Pease was being held in the Larimer County, Colorado, jail on his pending Wyoming charges.