BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
J. Gabbard
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ERLANGER -- Two days of hunting in two states for the accused killer of a Fort Thomas girl ended easily Thursday within sight of a police station.
Jeffrey Lee Gabbard was arrested about 3:25 p.m. by two Erlanger police detectives. The officers caught him in a bowling alley parking lot across the street from police headquarters.
Mr. Gabbard had called a family member from a telephone in the Super Bowl lot, police said. The relative responded by calling police. Detectives found him before he even made it out of the parking lot.
Mr. Gabbard, 29, faces a murder charge in the death of Jennifer Harber, a 17-year-old Highlands High School junior from Fort Thomas. Her body was found Wednesday morning in a park in Covington.
Police said Miss Harber was killed because she would not surrender the family car she was driving. She was shot in the face.
Mr. Gabbard, 29, was handcuffed without incident outside the Super Bowl. Detectives Mark Jolly and Mike Bianchi then drove him back across the street to the police department, where he was still being questioned after more than five hours Thursday night.
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Clermont Count deputies search around a barn where Gabbard may have stayed Wednesday night
(Tony Jones photo)
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The arrest in Northern Kentucky came after Ohio authorities spent hours Wednesday night and Thursday staking out an area of Ohio Township in Clermont County. Mr. Gabbard went there seeking shelter withhis sister, who lives there, police said. She did not help him, but called police instead.
Before the arrest, the Fort Thomas Police Department was flooded with calls from people who thought they recognized the heavily tattooed Mr. Gabbard.
"We had people say, "I rode the bus with a guy who looked like that' and, "I saw somebody like that hitchhiking,' " Lt. Mark Dill said.
Jennifer Harber
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It was unclear Thursday night where Mr. Gabbard had spent Wednesday and Thursday, or which, if any, of the reported sightings were accurate.Police were focusing in Fort Thomas on the area around where Mr. Gabbard had been living with his mother, the thought being that "people tend to want to go home, particularly when things are bad," Lt. Dill said.
Though police wanted Fort Thomas residents to be cautious, they never thought Mr. Gabbard was still a danger to others, Lt. Dill said.
Police had Mr. Gabbard in their sight briefly early Wednesday -- until he wrecked the Chevy Celebrity they say he stole from Miss Harber. But he fled. After the wreck, police found his 15-year-old niece in the car. She told them where they could find Miss Harber's body. The two girls were friends from school, police said.
Police knew to chase the Celebrity because Miss Harber's father, Ed, had reported his daughter and the car missing about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday after she failed to return home from an errand.
Investigators say Mr. Gabbard's niece knew about the killing second-hand, but was not directly involved. She faces charges of drug possession and receiving stolen property. She remained on house arrest Thursday and in the custody of her grandmother.
Mr. Gabbard, a convicted burglar and drug seller, had been out of an Ohio prison only since Aug. 14. He violated that parole almost immediately and has been wanted since Sept. 11 on an arrest warrant for violating his parole. A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction could not identify the violation. He had been in prison since July 1994 on a conviction for aggravated drug trafficking. He was sentenced to serve nine to 15 years and was released after serving four years and a month.
Mr. Gabbard had been in prison before that, having been sent there in August 1988 for burglary.
On that conviction, he was sentenced to six to 30 years and was released in July 1993 after serving almost five.
Mr. Gabbard now faces new charges of stealing the car, attempting to elude and evade a police officer, wanton endangerment, possession of drugs and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon.
Manhunt jolts farm community
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