Guard Suspected in Slaying of Partner Is Arrested in Utah

SAN FRANCISCO —  An armored car guard suspected of fatally shooting his partner and stealing $300,000 was taken into custody Thursday in Utah.

The Utah Highway Patrol stopped Thomas Wheelock on Interstate 15 near Centerville, just north of Salt Lake City.

“It was a routine traffic stop for a registration plate violation,” Highway Patrol spokesman Verdi White said.

Officers were on their way from California to Utah to identify the suspect, who was being held in jail in Farmington, Utah, for investigation of robbery and homicide.

Police allege that the 20-year-old shot and killed his partner late Monday or early Tuesday, leaving the armored car in San Ramon on the east side of San Francisco Bay. They later found most of the money hidden under a mattress in a Sacramento hotel room and arrested an alleged accomplice.

The Utah arrest ended an intensive West Coast search that began after the body of 30-year-old Rodrigo Cortez was found inside the armored car.

Wheelock was last seen in Red Bluff on Tuesday, when California Highway Patrol Officer Richard Barr spotted him on Interstate 5 about 80 miles north of Sacramento. Barr said Wheelock was having trouble with the 1985 Ford Bronco he had just purchased.

He helped get the broken-down vehicle towed to a service station, where it was fixed. Wheelock reportedly paid the bill in cash and told the mechanic he was headed to Portland, Ore.

Barr did not realize until the next morning that the man he helped was Wheelock.

Shortly after, a SWAT team apparently just missed Wheelock in a predawn raid Wednesday at the motel room.

They found cash stuffed in paper bags beneath the mattress. The money was still in the plastic wrapping from Oakland-based Armored Transport of California, where Wheelock had worked, authorities said.

Authorities declined to say how much money was recovered.

Wheelock worked at Armored Transport for less than two months, and was on probation for a misdemeanor robbery, according to the FBI.