Publisher Helps Pursue Fugitives in Paper Chase

Larry Myers seems an unlikely crusader.

The soft-spoken Illinois native puts in six days a week at a supermarket warehouse--as he has for 29 years--hefting crates to provide for his family. He wears a ball cap most of the time and enjoys the sports page and a good joke. He calls himself “a regular guy.”

But, since September, Myers is more than that: The 55-year-old is now a publisher and a man-hunter. Using his own money, he started up the Orange County Crusader, one of a growing number of newspapers across the nation devoted to tracking down criminals and missing persons.

Some scowling, some somber, the faces of fugitives are lined up like used car ads in the Crusader, a nonprofit, newsprint version of the popular television shows that recruit viewers to help solve crimes and generate tips.

“A lot of people say it’s morbid, and it is, I suppose,” Myers said outside the employee break room at the sprawling warehouse in Irvine. “People find it all fascinating, and I do too. It’s really about finding these guys, though, doing something to help.”

The help is appreciated by law enforcement. Orange County sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Ron Wilkerson met with Myers a few months ago to show him how he could pluck wanted posters off the World Wide Web to stock the pages of the Crusader.

“Anything that gets information out so the community can be aware of predators in their midst is a good thing,” Wilkerson said. He added that wanted bulletins already posted on the Internet or in post offices may not be as handy to citizens as a newspaper. “Having a copy with them might make the difference.”

The Crusader, with a circulation of about 20,000, is a four-page, half-sheet newspaper that is handed out by volunteers and stacked on counter tops in neighborhood markets and liquor stores. Ads for small businesses are run beside mug shots, editorials railing against crime and warnings against vigilantism.

Each mug shot has a phone number and a police agency to call with tips. Tustin Police Det. Tom Tarpley says he was pleased to see his agency among those listings.

“Someone sees it and realizes they recognize him as the guy from the local bar or the guy who just moved in down the street or the new guy at work,” Tarpley said. “And that can be a huge break.”

While police laud Myers’ fledgling project and dozens of local businesses have agreed to distribute the free paper, the going hasn’t been all smooth.

Myers has lost money--about $2,000--on the first two issues and will likely lose more on the third, due later this month. He has grappled with mastering computers (“I used to hate them,” he said) using the Internet and even setting the type for the paper.

And, while he declines to discuss it, he says his new endeavor also has made him the target of threats. “I rather not get into all that,” he said. Myers also refused to be photographed for this story and asked that his hometown in Orange County not be disclosed.

Myers’ name does not appear in the pages of the Crusader, another safety precaution, but his personality does come through its pages. He has written a poem in the memory of a murdered Kentucky girl for the next issue, along with a open letter challenging area child molesters to seek counseling.

Myers has also found himself personally involved with the tragedy left behind by the criminals listed in his pages. Talking to the mother of Dennis Swain Jr., a Moreno Valley youth slain in September 1994, Myers offered her publicity for the family’s ongoing hunt for the unknown killer.

“She had tears rolling out of her eyes,” Myers said solemnly. “She said she would take out a bank loan to pay a $5,000 reward to anyone who could help. We put that in our last issue, and she distributed about 3,000 copies on her own.”

The idea to launch himself into the world of publishing came to Myers last March after he read a newspaper article about the spread and success of identical newspapers across the nation.

Myers said he was struck by the number of fugitives who had been tracked by reader tips, such as the 735 felony fugitive arrests and 133 missing children recoveries attributed to the chain’s first paper, the 4-year-old Bay Area Crusader in Tampa, Fla.

“I just liked the figures,” Myers said, citing the Bay Area Crusader’s boast that one in three listings lead to a successful tip. “It seemed like something you could do to make an impact. I jumped right in.”

Myers paid a $500 franchise fee to the chain for a 100-page start-up manual, a steady flow of advice and Orange County as his exclusive turf. The national chain gets no other money from the local edition. Myers created a nonprofit corporation to publish his paper, and he said any profits it generates from ads and donations would be plowed back into his publication to increase circulation.

There are 58 Crusader papers across the country, the largest of them the Garden State Crusader in New Jersey, with a circulation of 30,000. The founder of the chain, Ken Donovan of Tampa, said Orange County has long been a target for expansion because of its population base and crime rates.

Donovan said Myers was selected from half a dozen prospective publishers in the area, and plans are underway to start a separate Los Angeles edition. The only other California edition is a year-old effort in San Diego.

“The formula works everywhere and we’re very impressed with Larry’s efforts so far,” Donovan said. “It works because all these [fugitives] still have to get jobs, they still have to go shopping and buy gas. Unless they go completely underground, they are out there and being seen by somebody.”

The Orange County Crusader’s circulation hovers around 20,000, but Myers said he’d like to reach 100,000 in the months to come. That lofty goal takes a back seat to Myers’ short-term focus, though.

“I’m waiting for the first tip that leads to an arrest,” Myers said as he scanned the mug shots in his second issue. “That’s going to be great, really satisfying. That’s the thing I want to see.”