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The 49-year-old Austin Township resident's criminal history also includes resisting and obstructing police, assault and battery and disorderly person, and drunk driving. He has also been served with two personal protection orders by women who feared him.

On Aug. 30, 1997, Soule walked away from the jail, where he was a trustee serving the first month of a one-year sentence for drunk driving, driving while license suspended, and unlawful use of a license plate. Then Jail Administrator Tim Torp reported "personal reasons at home" apparently led to Soule's decision to escape. He was not considered dangerous.

Soule was captured four months later, on Christmas Eve, but not before he successfully eluded police several weeks earlier. That September, he outran deputies who arrived to arrest him at his mobile home in Austin Township. When they knocked on the door, the 38-year-old jail escapee dropped under the trailer house through a trapped door, kicked out the skirting and fled across the road into an 80-acre cornfield.

Soule also tried to outrun police on Dec. 24 of that year, when they pulled into the driveway of a Tyre Road address in Austin Township. But officers were ready for him this time. While two state police troopers went to the front door, three sheriff's deputies, including then dog handler Deputy Sheriff Jim Wagester and police dog Dandy, went around back.

When Soule spotted the state police cruiser, he bolted out the back door and into the woods. Dandy chased down the escapee, who briefly resisted arrest when he was placed into handcuffs by officers. Soule was sentenced to 15 months to two years for escape, and nine months for attempted resisting and obstructing police.

In March 2005, Soule was arrested for assault and battery against a woman at a Verona Road residence in Minden Township. He was also charged with disorderly person and trespass. The assault and trespass counts were dismissed in a plea bargain, and Soule was sentenced to two years non-reporting probation He was discharged from probation in May 2007.

Two women were granted court-ordered personal protection orders against Soule in 1998 and in 2003. The women were not the ones that were murdered.

The 1998 PPO was approved after the woman, who lived at Soule's Charleston Road address, claimed he assault her with a shotgun and she was afraid for her life. The 2003 PPO was signed after a woman at the Charleston Road residence claimed he had smashed the windows and torn out the spark plugs on her vehicle, ripped the straps off her purse and threw her cell phone against a wall.