What is a hero? When consulting a dictionary, phrases describing people admired for their achievements or qualities prevail. Movies and television often show characters such as Superman or Captain America. The term “local hero” is often used to describe emergency responders. But none of this answers that initial question. What is a hero?
Each week, The West Virginia Daily News strives to define the phrase by featuring someone within the area as the Greenbrier County Hero of the Week. Occasionally, a nominee comes forth who comes closer to the definition of a superhero of comic book proportions. This week, WVDN’s heroes are two brave, resourceful women who helped thwart the escaped convict from Arkansas recently captured in Lewisburg. Sarah Beale and Elizabeth Edmond, employees at the Super 8 Motel, put their investigative skills to the test and discovered vital information.
In this edition of Greenbrier County Hero of the Week, Beale shares the story of their experience and efforts. Generally, the GCHotW column consists of questions and answers, but this one is unique. Here is the tale of two valiant motel employees who helped bring four criminals to justice.
It was not a dark and stormy night, but it was drizzling rain when Beale received a call in the middle of the night urging her to get to the motel ASAP.
[Beale] The night of Aug. 29, I was woken up by a call from my nightshift worker at 12:45 a.m. He told me there were about 40 U.S. marshals at our hotel, and I needed to come in. So I rushed to the hotel to be greeted by one of the Marshals on the sidewalk.
This conversation sparked the subsequent events. According to Beale, the marshal gave her a rundown of what was happening and who they were looking for, noting that a vehicle belonging to one of the accomplices was parked in the motel’s back lot. She said he told her that if they confirmed the individuals were inside the building, they would need to evacuate.
[Beale] My heart sank, and I immediately shook with fear while half asleep still. We went back to my office and pulled the footage of the back parking lot where the truck was. That’s when we see Rodney Trent, one of the accomplices, at 10:30 p.m. pull in, park and just casually walk over the hill into the woodline to come out onto 219. So that’s when we all realized, they were not in the hotel at all. But where did they go?
[Beale] The Marshals brought the dog out, but it was raining in that moment, and it seemed it couldn’t get a good trace of them. They wrapped up and just said thank you and left. I also finally went home at 4 a.m.
The next morning, too anxious to sleep, Beale rushed to work. At this point, she was working with Elizabeth Edmond.
[Beale] I was working with my employee, Elizabeth Edmond, this day, who is my best friend from high school also. She is who worked the evening shift on Aug. 28. Two unmarked U.S. Marshal [vehicles] were sitting in our parking lot waiting for someone to come to that truck because at that point that’s the only leads they had. Elizabeth and I were sitting around discussing the situation and reading news articles about these people.
[Beale] That’s when Elizabeth saw the picture of Samuel Hartman’s mother, Linda White. She said, “Wait Sarah, I think that lady tried to check in yesterday evening, and I refused to rent her a room!” So that’s when Elizabeth and I started doing our research on the system to get the timing of canceling the reservation, then pulled camera footage up, and thats when I saw a skinny version of Linda White. Elizabeth said she was acting very odd when she came in.
Several issues led to Edmond refusing to rent the room to White. Initially, the woman said she did not have her ID. Later, she produced an ID, but it was local. The Super 8 has a policy of not renting to locals, due to past issues.
[Beale] We’ve been working hard at changing the reputation of this place since I became manager in March 2022 and making it a safe, inviting place for our tourists who come into town. This is very important for us and can be seen by Elizabeth refusing Linda a room due to being “local.” This could’ve turned out very differently if she hadn’t refused to rent her a room.
[Beale] As she told her that we were sorry but we have a strict no-local policy, she questioned Elizabeth a little about the reasons for the policy and then proceeded to leave. So my first thought is, if her car broke down, then she must have been walking. Let’s see where she came walking from. The first camera showed she came around the corner. The next camera also showed her coming from the other corner as if she was walking from the back or side parking. And that’s when the side camera showed around 7:40 p.m. the truck of Rodney Trent pulled in and parked around the side and Linda got out and came around to our front entrance.
[Beale] We were still questioning if that was even Linda because of her being so skinny compared to the pictures of her the Marshals had until this moment. BOOM we got them. We had the fake name she was traveling under and her cell phone number which was attached to the cancelled reservation. You can imagine the excitement Elizabeth and I had as we ran outside up to the U.S. Marshall’s vehicle because they were at a standstill until we found this information out. If we wouldn’t have done our own investigation on this, they may have not been caught at all.
[Beale] The U.S. Marshal looked at us with the biggest “Oh boy” look. His words exactly, “You have no idea what you all just did.” Then 5 minutes later, that’s when I was standing at their vehicle and heard them call someone else saying “Hey you don’t need to stop by any more hotels, we got them, they’re at the Quality Inn.”
[Beale] They thanked us up and down. It was as if we were their heroes. Then they left. About 4 hours later is when we heard the loudspeaker across the road at the Quality Inn saying, “U.S. MARSHALS, THE BUILDINGS SURROUNDED, SURRENDER YOURSELF!” and we watched them as they arrested all four, and we applauded from our side of the road.
About The Greenbrier County Hero
Greenbrier County Hero is a weekly column highlighting interesting people living in Greenbrier County. The column was originally named “Meet a Greenbrier Countian” which ran in The West Virginia Daily News for multiple decades. If you know of a person or organization that embodies the spirit of humanitarian service, volunteerism and/or has exceptional talent, please, let us know! Send your nominations to hero@wvdn.com.
