Indonesia Extradites Ex-Police Officer Sought in US Murder

TEMPO.CO, Austin, Texas - A former Austin, Texas, police officer has been charged with capital murder in the death of his pregnant girlfriend, according to a federal affidavit unsealed Wednesday, September 2.

VonTrey Jamal Clark was being extradited from Indonesia to the United States. The Bastrop County Sheriff's Office scheduled a news conference Thursday to discuss the case against him in the death of Samantha Dean, whose body was found in February behind a vacant shopping center.

A federal arrest affidavit says a Bastrop County judge had sworn out a state arrest warrant July 21 charging Clark with capital murder. It also says a federal warrant for unlawful flight was issued July 24.

Clark, 32, who flew to Indonesia in July, was deported through Ngurah Rai airport in Denpasar, the provincial capital of Bali resort island. He was handed over to 13 agents of the FBI and was being flown to Texas on a specially chartered plane from the bureau.

Bali police spokesman Hery Wiyanto said Clark arrived in Indonesia on July 19 on an American Airlines flight through Jakarta. He was then arrested in Canggu neighborhood in Bali on July 30 based on a notice from Interpol.

He said Clark had moved repeatedly to avoid arrest. He was to have been captured earlier in a hotel in Kuta neighborhood, but he managed to escape and hired a villa in Cangu, where he was arrested.

Dean was found shot to death behind a vacant building. An autopsy indicated she was seven months pregnant. The 29-year-old coordinated victims' services for the Kyle Police Department, serving a small city south of Austin in central Texas.

Media in Austin have reported Clark joined the police department in 2012 and was fired in July for insubordination and neglect of duty. His lawyer has been quoted as saying the allegations regarding his job didn't merit a firing and the trip to Indonesia was not an attempt to flee.

AP