An observant viewer provided a tip to Washington’s Most Wanted (WMW) that led to the arrest of convicted serial rapist William Manus.
On Friday night’s (Aug. 9) broadcast, Manus was featured on the program for failure to register. Earlier this month, the level 3 sex offender – the worst of the worst and highest risk to re-offend – “went off the grid” in Pierce County. With his long criminal history, cops knew they had to find Manus and quickly.
“The danger of having registered sex offenders who’ve been convicted of rape multiple times, and robbery, and drugs, and a whole host of other crimes, is that you know they’re still out doing it,” said Pierce County Det. Ed Troyer. “We don’t know where he’s at. So that makes Mr. Manus a very, very dangerous subject, who is likely going to hurt somebody else and continue a life of crime to support his habits.”
The information called in by the viewer after Friday night’s WMW broadcast led Tacoma police to where Manus was living – a field in the south end of Tacoma. Officers searched the field and found Manus. He was taken into custody. Manus is the 448th fugitive caught since Washington’s Most Wanted started in November of 2008.