UPDATED: MURDER SUSPECT ON THE RUN IN FREDA HEYN'S DEATH CAPTURED:

Murder suspect Billy Wayne Hall, who has been on the run from cops since January, has been taken into custody and is in the Christian County jail.

Hall, who is charged with second degree murder for the 2003 beating and dismemberment death of 68 year-old Freda Heyn (b.) was taken into custody this evening at a home near Branson.

He also faces kidnapping charges related to Heyn's disappearance.

Hall was charged with Heyn's death in 2006, but those charges were dismissed due to an evidentiary matter.

Christian County sheriff, Joey Kyle (b.), says that the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force, which includes deputies from Christian, Greene, Webster and Taney counties, the Missouri Water Patrol and officers from ICE and ATF took Hall into custody without any problems.


Sheriff Kyle said, "my biggest fear was the safety of my deputies encountering Billy and possibly getting in some kind of situation where somebody could get injured....I don't want anybody to get injured, including Billy."

Kyle added, "that was probably my greatest fear, that in an attempt to apprehend him somebody would get injured."

The sheriff said he breathed a sigh of relief when he got a simple text message that read....."we got him."

Inside sources within the investigation into Hall's capture say that several places where Hall was reported to hideout were hit in Christian County before the task force headed to Taney County.

The task force started surveillance on a trailer in the 200 block of Beaver Road near Table Rock Lake about 5 p. m.....and by 6:30 they had the fugitive in custody.

Hall was reportedly using a lot of meth in the days leading up to his capture, however, no drugs or weapons were found inside the house that he was hiding in.

Charges of harboring a fugitive are being considered against a large number of people who allegedly helped Hall elude authorities.

Christian County prosecutor Ron Cleek (b.) re-filed murder charges against Billy Wayne Hall in late February after information came out during the first-degree murder trial of his former sister-in-law, Paula Hall, that implicated him in Heyn's murder.

In addition to the murder and kidnapping charges, Hall is charged with one felony count of manufacturing a controlled substance (meth) within 2000 feet of a school.

He is being held on $250,000 bond on the murder and kidnapping charge; $50,000 bond for the manufacturing charge....and a probation violation that will keep him in jail because there is no bond available on that.

A jury found Paula Hall guilty of second-degree murder in Taney County where the case was moved on a change of venue.

She is scheduled to be sentenced on May 26th in Christian County.

UPDATE (04-01-09):

Billy Hall was arraigned in front of Christian County Associate Circuit Judge John Waters this morning.

He was referred to a public defender and is scheduled to appear in court again on April 7th.

https://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet/cases/searchCases.do
09N8-CR00446 - ST VS BILLY W HALL

Drug Charges:
https://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet/cases/searchCases.do
09N8-CR00036 - ST V BILLY W HALL

****image of sheriff kyle, christian county headliner

****image of ron cleek, hometown radio