Gordon Douglas Weaver, 44, who is accused of killing his wife in their suburban St. Paul home to collect life insurance money, had worked odd jobs and befriended a local pastor in Florence before his arrest.
An anonymous call from the Florence area, reportedly from somebody who saw Weaver's story on the Web site of the television show America's Most Wanted, alerted the FBI that Weaver was working at a construction site here.
Agents in Minneapolis relayed the information to the FBI's Eugene office.
On Wednesday, up to a half-dozen agents, four Florence police officers and a Lane County sheriff's deputy knocked on the door of a residence just outside the city limits.
``Do you know why we're here?'' they asked, and Weaver said ``No,'' according to FBI agent Michael Morrow. But he admitted to being Weaver, and the police took him into custody without incident.
Weaver will face federal charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in Eugene on Thursday before he's extradited to Minnesota to face murder and arson charges.
The Rev. Brian Fitch said the unemployed man he knew as David Carson had attended the Florence Church of the Nazarene for the past two or three years.
``He has been helping us build a new building,'' said Fitch, who was ``devastated'' when the FBI showed up at church on Wednesday. ``I would have never dreamed this possible.''
Fitch said Weaver had done some work as a Web site consultant, but had been volunteering with the church for the past six to eight weeks.
Weaver has a master's degree in management information systems, according to the FBI. The Indiana-born man regularly attended church functions and had made friends here, including the couple he lived with, Fitch said.
``I thought David was a great guy. He is a great guy,'' Fitch said. ``Everything we know about him is that he was a wonderful person.''
Weaver was first charged in 1999 with second-degree murder and first-degree arson.
The blaze at the Weaver home in White Bear Lake was set two days before a $378,000 insurance policy on Jean Weaver was to expire, according to a report in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.
Three days before her death on Oct. 16, 1999, Jean Weaver had asked for a divorce. Court documents showed Weaver's business, Oakdale Golf & Tennis Club Inc., was in severe financial trouble.
He was listed as the sole beneficiary of his wife's two $189,000 life and accidental death insurance policies as well as her 401(k) account of $34,533, according to court records.
Police said Jean Weaver was hit on the head and set on fire in the family's basement laundry room, and that her clothing was saturated with fluids believed to be mineral spirits and turpentine.
By the time firefighters arrived, she was dead, her partly burned body lying face down in several inches of water. An autopsy revealed that she died of smoke inhalation.
After posting a $300,000 bond, Weaver disappeared from Minnesota, skipping his March 15, 2000, indictment.
