Edward B. Colby, Dedham (Mass.) Transcript
Dalton Daily Citizen
DEDHAM, Mass. — Police said an anonymous tipster led them to the Fairfield Inn Saturday to arrest a 24-year-old Georgia woman wanted for armed robbery — taking her into custody after they used a ruse to get a male companion out of their hotel room.
Samantha Sanford of 52 Shope Ridge Road in Ringgold was arrested and given a charge of fugitive from justice on a court warrant, said Lt. Robert Nedder.
She pleaded not guilty at her arraignment in Dedham District Court Monday, and is due back there for a status hearing March 30, but could be picked up by Georgia authorities in the meantime.
Nedder said that Saturday Detective Robert Walsh spoke with someone from the Norfolk House of Correction who had received an anonymous phone call telling him that a woman named Sanford was staying at the Fairfield Inn, at 235 Elm St. The caller said Sanford was wanted for an armed robbery in Dalton and that she would be with a black man named Ramon, Nedder said.
Dalton is “the Carpet Capital of the World.” The small town of Ringgold — a little farther up I-75 in northwest Georgia — is where the famed “Great Locomotive Chase” of the Civil War ended in 1862.
Walsh got in touch with a Dalton detective, who gave him all the personal identifying information for Sanford and a color booking photo from 2007, Nedder said.
When Walsh and two other Dedham police officers went to the Fairfield Inn on Saturday, the hotel had no record of Sanford or any man named Ramon, Nedder said. But on Sunday, a hotel manager phoned Walsh and told him that on Friday police had actually been called there for a domestic dispute between a white woman and black man. But when police went there that day, the couple was gone, Nedder said.
The manager told Walsh the room was under the name of Samantha Wynn. After speaking with Georgia authorities again, Walsh found out that Sanford had previously been married and that her married name was Samantha Wynn, Nedder said.
At about 9:30 a.m. on Sunday, five officers went back to the Fairfield Inn to begin surveillance of the room she was supposed to be in, Nedder said.
“They used a ruse and were able to draw the male party out of the room,” Nedder said.
That man, Ramon Walker, 37, of 1850 Washington St. in Boston, was detained in the stairwell, he said.
Walsh and Detective Daniel Panciocco then went to the room and knocked on the door, which was answered by Sanford, who was taken into custody without incident, according to Nedder.
Walker had a Social Security card with a different name, and claimed he was that person, also 37 years old, Nedder said. But police called numbers in his phone and were able to identify him as Ramon Walker, and saw that he had the number 6 tattooed on the left side of his neck, just as Boston Police had told them, Nedder said.
The suspect eventually said his name was Ramon Walker and that he had outstanding warrants, Nedder said.
Walker has one warrant from Plymouth Superior Court for cocaine trafficking, and four warrants for breaking and entering into a building in the daytime, according to Nedder. Two of those warrants are from West Roxbury District Court, one is from Quincy District Court, and one is from Suffolk Superior Court, he said.
