Suspects in Cross-Country Series of Killings Seized in New Mexico : Crime: Police find the two asleep in a culvert near Santa Fe. They are suspected of murdering four people in three states.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. —  Two suspects in a weeklong odyssey of murder and robbery were captured in the desert near Santa Fe, N.M., Tuesday morning, 1,500 miles from home.

State police officers, acting on a tip from a local man, surprised Lewis Gilbert, 22, and Eric Elliot, 16, as they slept in a concrete culvert not far from the city’s airport. Two rifles, a shotgun and a handgun lay nearby.

The two did not resist the half-dozen arresting officers, state Police Lt. David Osuna said. Soon afterward, a search helicopter found a silver Dodge pickup similar to one taken from an Oklahoma woman who was shot to death Sunday.

Gilbert and Elliot, both of Newcomerstown, Ohio, are suspected of killing four people in Ohio, Missouri and Oklahoma, in each case stealing their vehicles to travel to the next crime.

They were charged in U.S. District Court Tuesday with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, based on criminal counts of kidnaping and aggravated burglary filed in Ohio. Unlawful-flight charges typically are used as a device to hold a suspect until state charges are filed.

Tuesday afternoon, each suspect appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lorenzo Garcia in Albuquerque. Elliot’s hearing was closed because he is a juvenile; Gilbert appeared in a packed courtroom.

Wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans and basketball shoes, he appeared sunburned, tired and disheveled, his wavy blond hair matted. Speaking in a low voice, Gilbert said he understood the charges.

But when Garcia asked whether Gilbert wanted to have an attorney appointed for him, he answered, “No, sir.” Garcia said he would not allow Gilbert to waive his right to an attorney without first discussing the matter with a court-appointed attorney.

A preliminary hearing to decide whether probable cause exists to hold the pair is scheduled for Thursday.

According to an affidavit filed in federal court by Peter A. Christ, an FBI special agent in Canton, Ohio, the crime rampage began with the abduction Aug. 29 of Ruth Lucille Loader from her Port Washington, Ohio, home. Loader, who was 79 and recovering from cancer surgery, has not been seen since. Her 1980 Buick Skylark was found last Wednesday near Fulton, Mo.

Christ said Elliot reportedly had been seen at a truck stop about a mile from where Loader’s car was found. The next day, the bodies of William Brewer, 86, and his wife, Flossie, 76, were found in their home 150 yards from where Loader’s car ended up. Each had been shot three times, and their 1981 Oldsmobile Cutlass was missing.

Meanwhile, agents learned, Elliot and Gilbert had turned up at the home of Gilbert’s mother, Yvonne Rowan, in Tahlequah, Okla., driving a car similar to the Brewers’. The pair told Rowan that the car belonged to a friend and that they were headed to California, Texas or Florida. They left Rowan’s home Friday evening.

On Sunday, police found the body of Roxie Ruddel, a 37-year-old security guard, at a marina near Oklahoma City. Her pickup truck had been stolen. The Brewers’ Oldsmobile was found nearby.

Suspecting that Gilbert and Elliot were headed to California, where Elliot’s mother lives, police issued a nationwide alert.

Meanwhile, two people called the New Mexico State Police on Tuesday morning to report encounters with the pair. One, a man from Lamy, N.M., a small town about 12 miles southeast of Santa Fe, said two men drove to his home Monday afternoon and asked for gasoline. He gave it to them, but became suspicious after talking to co-workers Tuesday.

The other caller, a Santa Fe man, said he had given the pair a lift into town Monday evening, then returned them to where their pickup truck was stuck in an arroyo near the Santa Fe Downs racetrack.

Within half an hour, officers converging on the area found and arrested Gilbert and Elliot.

Elliot’s stepmother, Judy Elliot, said in a telephone interview Tuesday that reports of the crimes were a shock.

“We can’t believe it,” she said. “We feel it’s a nightmare going on. We don’t think he committed any of the murders. We believe he was forced to go with this guy.”

Times staff writer Chip Johnson in Los Angeles contributed to this story.