South Dakota finally gets its man

Keith Paul

Thursday, April 13, 2000 | 11:23 a.m.

David Broadway was sitting in a Las Vegas bar when he heard a name he hasn't been called in more than a decade -- Harold.

Broadway turned around and grinned at the Metro Police fugitive squad detectives and simply said, "You got me."

Broadway is really 48-year-old Harold Joseph Pulkrabek, who has been on the run from South Dakota for nearly 11 years. He fled Rapid City after he was accused of pistol whipping a man during an argument. Pulkrabek was also wanted on a parole violation.

Detectives found him in a Vegas Valley Drive bar at 5 p.m. Friday. This morning he was in the Clark County Detention Center awaiting extradition back to South Dakota.

"He made a few comments he was glad it was over and he can finally get in touch with his sister and the rest of his family," Detective Mike Gillins of Metro's fugitive squad said.

South Dakota officials also were glad it was finally over. They've been waiting since July 1989 to hear Pulkrabek was in custody.

"South Dakota never forgets," said Mike Ernst, a deputy administrator for the South Dakota Board of Pardons and Paroles. "You don't want to break the law in South Dakota. We've got a long memory."

Police said that by his own account Pulkrabek has been living in the Las Vegas area since probably the early 1990s working as a painter and generally staying out of trouble.

South Dakota officials once had information he was in Wyoming and also in Nevada, but were never able to catch up with him.

But in November he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge. Since Metro Police didn't have any reason to hold David Broadway and since he had legal documents backing up that identity, he was released.

Pulkrabek was able to change his name, but his fingerprints caught up with him. Prints taken at the jail are sent off to be checked against a nationwide database. In February the prints came back saying they didn't belong to David Broadway but to Harold Pulkrabek.

But by that time Pulkrabek had changed homes in Las Vegas. Metro detectives searched for him and Friday received a tip that he was sitting in a bar.

He told detectives he has worked for several painting businesses in town and even ran his own painting business, Gillins said. But the detective added that while David Broadway didn't have any serious crime associated with his name, there is no way to tell how many other names Pulkrabek has used.

Pennington County (S.D.) Sheriff's Sgt. Don Bahr doesn't know Pulkrabek as a nondescript painter but as a man accused of a very violent crime while still on parole.

"Sounds like he stayed out of the limelight, but we're glad he's coming back," Bahr said.

Ernst said according to South Dakota law, Pulkrabek owes the state every minute of time he was on the run plus the remaining time on his sentence.

Pulkrabek owed four more years on the 10 years he was sentenced for drug-related convictions and now 11 more years for the time he violated his parole by running, Ernst said.

"We had a guy four years ago who had been running for 26 years and was brought back," he said. "Like I said, South Dakota never forgets."

Keith Paul covers crime and public safety for the Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4057 or by e-mail at keith@lasvegassun.com