MARION COUNTY — After months on the run, a 26-year-old man wanted for the attempted First Degree murder and aggravated battery in September of another Centralia man is now being held in the Marion County Jail, with bail set at $500,000, after he was extradited from Michigan where he was captured early last month.

Charles Collins
Charles Collins

Charles Demarcus Collins was returned to Marion County Thursday. He had been taken into custody in early February by the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force out of East St. Louis, after the agency learned he was at a home in Grand Rapids. Deputies with the agency waited outside the Grand Rapids home for several hours before Collins surrendered without incident.

Police Chief Doug Krutsinger said the man shot, Fernando Calcutt, identified Collins, also known as “Squirt,” as the person who shot him. Calcutt was shot in the right arm as the two vehicles passed each other. He was able to drive himself to the hospital.

Krutsinger said Collins was also the man injured in the August 23rd shooting in the Maulding Drive area that resulted in the death of 24-year-old Dustin Ryhnes of Irvington. That shooting remains under an investigation being headed by State Police. There have been no arrests in that shooting.

Calcutt reported that around 6:30 p.m. September 3, 2015, he and his wife Inez were attempting to turn around and had just pulled into a driveway on Linden near the 4th Street intersection when shots began being fired from an SUV carrying Collins and the shots reportedly continued as the vehicle came closer.

Calcutt told police that Collins was hanging out of the passenger window of the vehicle driven by his girlfriend, 24-year-old Amilia “Milli” Rivera, of Centralia, when the two vehicles encountered each other near the old Centralia High School.

Rivera initially fled the area with Collins, but returned on her own a few months later. No warrant had been issued for her arrest in the case and she has not been charged in relation to the shooting incident.