EMERY P. DALESIO
RALEIGH, N.C. – Authorities in New York arrested a convicted rapist today in the slaying of a North Carolina police chief’s daughter, hours after the lawman made an emotional plea for help tracking the suspect down.
FBI agents and U.S. Marshals took Michael Neal Harvey, 34, into custody without incident in Niagara Falls, N.Y. He was wanted on a murder warrant in the killing of Valerie Hamilton, a 23-year-old preschool worker and swim instructor whose body was found in a North Carolina self-storage unit on Saturday.
Merl Hamilton, police chief in the Charlotte-area city of Concord, used an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” to ask for help from law enforcement around the country, his voice breaking several times as he spoke. He later described Valerie as a “perfect daughter” in an interview with the Associated Press and said he felt kinship with the officers tracking Harvey.
“Law enforcement across this country is like a brotherhood and a sisterhood and I’m hoping that they’ll help me with this, and that they can get out there and find this guy,” Hamilton told The AP before Harvey’s arrest.