Escaped killer who hoped to be 'bear food' sentenced

Escaped killer who hoped to be 'bear food' sentenced

A convicted murderer who broke out of an Arizona prison and led a multi-state manhunt last summer was sentenced to 38 years behind bars on Friday for a crime spree he hoped would end with bears devouring him at Yellowstone National Park.

Tracy Province, 42, was already serving a life sentence for murder and armed robbery on July 30 when he and two other inmates used wire-cutters to break through the perimeter fence of a medium-security prison in northwestern Arizona.

The fugitives hid out in the desert near Kingman, Arizona before embarking on what turned out to be a weeks-long rampage that held two truckers hostage in Arizona and left an elderly couple dead in New Mexico.

Province later told police his fear of capture led him to fantasize about fleeing to a mountain area like Yellowstone, where he planned to overdose on heroin and "be bear food," according to a report by Mohave County Sheriff's Detective Larry Matthews.

...

"He had planned to go up on the mountain and shoot (heroin) and be bear food," Matthews wrote. "He wanted to overdose and let the bears eat him."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/29/us-crime-bear-idUSTRE70S0TL20110129

Report: Arizona fugitive planned suicide by bear
http://www.nbc12.com/Global/story.asp?S=13922876