A prosecutor says two of four Alabama fugitives captured after a weekend standoff in southwestern North Dakota are due in court to face charges of conspiracy to commit robbery.

One of the four was convicted in the 2003 slaying of a Limestone County man.

Henning said more charges are expected in connection with the escape.

Stark County, N.D., State’s Attorney Tom Henning says 26-year-old Joshua Southwick and 25-year-old Angela Mink are scheduled to appear in court via video on Monday afternoon. They are accused in the robbery of a Dickinson video store.

Authorities say Southwick and Mink’s brother, 22-year-old Ashton Mink, escaped from a prison in Uniontown, Ala., on May 25. Mink’s sister and his wife allegedly helped the men escape.

The four were arrested after a nearly 14-hour standoff on a ranch just outside Gladstone. Authorities say Ashton Mink and his wife, Jacquelin, were wounded in an exchange of gunfire and were hospitalized, with their conditions reported stable.

Southwick, a Michigan native, pleaded guilty in February 2007 to a murder-for-hire in which an Elkmont man was killed in 2003. Southwick received a life sentence for murder and 20 years for burglary in Limestone County Circuit Court in connection with the death of Michael Bryant, 21.

Southwick was one of three men accused in the plot to kill Bryant, but Ardmore resident Mark Anthony Angus was acquitted. The third man, James Mason Duncan of Arkansas, pleaded guilty to murder in Limestone County Circuit Court in April 2007 and was sentenced to life in prison. Bryant was shot execution style in a mobile home. Bryant’s teen girlfriend and members of her family were inside at the time.





The standoff





Police in Gladstone, N.D., were trying to capture suspects in a video store robbery who turned out to be four people wanted in an Alabama prison break. The suspects had holed up in a garage and held off authorities for more than 14 hours Saturday before two of them surrendered and two were wounded in a shootout with police.

Authorities on Saturday cordoned off the community of about 200 along Interstate 94, about 85 miles west of Bismarck. Some 40 officers had surrounded a ranch where two prison escapees and two women accused of helping them had made their stand with police. They also warned people to lock up in a place that usually doesn’t worry about security.

“I locked the doors and turned out the lights and made ourselves as inconspicuous as I could. My husband stayed in bed,” Lillian Bondell said.

Southwick and Ashton Mink, Angela Mink and Jacquelin Mink had eluded officers in at least seven states.

Authorities said officers were preparing to use tear gas on the detached garage around 2:25 p.m., when Southwick and Angela Mink walked out and were arrested. Ashton and Jacquelin Mink ran out the back of the building, and gunfire was exchanged. Authorities said the two were wounded but their conditions were not released.

Authorities at first thought they were dealing with suspects in a video store robbery in nearby Dickinson until a license plate check of the car they were chasing revealed the suspects were also prison escapees. The four face charges in the video store robbery.

A Highway Patrol trooper chased the robbery suspects’ car toward Gladstone at speeds up to 100 mph, Henning and Stark County Sheriff Clarence Tuhy said. Shots were fired at the Highway Patrol trooper’s windshield but he was not hurt.

A rancher in Gladstone called soon afterward to report someone was in his garage, which was about 50 feet from his home.

“We put two and two together,” Tuhy said.

The rancher and his family got out of the house.

Henning said a rifle, handguns and camping equipment were found in the suspects’ car. Authorities used a robot to take a cell phone and cigarettes to the suspects. Later, “two of them gave up and two of them came out the side door shooting,” Tuhy said.

“Everybody is glad it turned out the way it did,” the sheriff said. “Fortunately, no officers or the public were hurt. Unfortunately, two people were shot, and that’s just part of our job. What are you going to do?”

Stark County Prosecutor Tom Henning said he expects to file robbery, attempted murder and conspiracy charges on Monday.

Southwick and Ashton Mink had escaped in Alabama on May 25, after the women hid in the woods outside the prison during a storm and cut the electric fence, authorities said. Southwick and Ashton Mink changed into a pair of uniforms normally worn by kitchen workers and were mistakenly allowed outside the prison, corrections authorities said. Seven employees at the privately owned prison were fired after the escape.

Southwick had pleaded guilty to murder and burglary in a slaying six years ago. Mink was serving time for attempted murder in a stabbing during a home invasion.