GENTRY — A captured Arizona prison escapee told police investigators Friday that he and the woman who helped him break out of prison robbed an Arkansas beauty salon Aug. 11, a U.S. Marshals Service supervisor said.

The U.S. Marshals supervisory deputy said John McCluskey admitted he drove a Nissan Sentra from Montana to Arkansas and robbed Joyce Cook at Kut & Kurl, the beauty shop she owns in Gentry.

“After he was arrested, he admitted they did rob that place,” Tom Henman said. “He made a statement implicating himself in that.

“They have been unpredictable that whole time. It would make no sense for them to go from Montana to Arkansas and back to Arizona.”

Northwest Arkansas law enforcement officials Friday expressed strong skepticism about McCluskey’s admission, and they’ll need to know more before taking him at his word.

“I have no concrete evidence yet placing him at the scene of our robbery,” said Gentry Police Chief Keith Smith, "but we're looking into it. If he is making statements of that nature, I’d have to say there have been a lot of cases where somebody who thinks he’s just Billy Badboy says something like this. They garner some notoriety in prison circles.”

McCluskey, 45, and Casslyn Welch, 44, were captured at Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in eastern Arizona after a three-week manhunt that made them two of the most wanted fugitives in America.

Around 4 p.m. Thursday, a U.S. Forest Service ranger investigated what appeared to be an unattended campfire in the national forest, said David Gonzales, U.S. marshal for Arizona. He found the silver Nissan Sentra backed suspiciously into the trees as if someone were trying to hide it.

The ranger had a brief conversation with McCluskey, who appeared nervous and fidgety.

Arriving officers left nothing to chance - fully expecting a guns-blazing shoot-out by two desperate fugitives. A helicopter, ambulance, bloodhounds and a secondary team were brought in to respond to any reports of officers down at the campsite.

Apache County sheriff’s Cmdr. Webb Hogle said McCluskey and Welch were standing next to a car that belonged to a neighboring camper as the SWAT team swarmed in. He yelled at McCluskey to “get down.” When the fugitive didn’t comply, Hogle said, he took him down with force.

Corrections officials have said that Welch helped Mc-Cluskey and fellow inmates Tracy Province and Daniel Renwick escape July 30 from the private prison near Kingman, Ariz., by cutting through a security fence.

Renwick was recaptured in Rifle, Colo., on Aug. 1, and Province was found in Meeteetse, Wyo., on Aug. 9.

It’s not clear where Mc-Cluskey and Welch traveled while on the run in the beat-up Nissan. They are suspected in several crimes, including the killing of a former McDonald County, Mo., couple in New Mexico.

Cook, who owns the Gentry beauty salon, said Friday she hadn’t heard about McCluskey’s admission, but she felt like the television video she saw Friday morning of Mc-Cluskey and Welch looked a whole lot more like the couple who robbed her than the pictures police showed her Aug. 11.

“That’s it exactly,” Cook said. “I have said all along that the resemblance was close.”

However, Cook also remembers the man who robbed her wearing a short-sleeved shirt and having no tattoos.

McCluskey’s arms are covered with tattoos.

She said Friday her focus wasn’t on the man’s arms, though.

“I was looking at that gun,” said Cook, 62.

Doug Gay, a spokesman for the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, said he knew nothing about Mc-Cluskey’s admission regarding the Gentry crime.

“We were pretty confident that they were not the people who were responsible for the robbery at the Kut & Kurl that morning,” Gay said.

Welch has family connections to Northwest Arkansas, Oklahoma and southern Missouri.

Her mother, Carolyn Choat, is a former Gentry resident who police have said moved away.

Her former husband is a McDonald County church pastor, and some of his relatives live in Colcord, Okla.

Smith said Gentry police continue to pursue leads, as investigators don’t know whether McCluskey’s admission is truthful.

They’ve interviewed Cook several times about the crime, he said.

“The memory is a funny thing when fear is involved, and she’s had so much thrown at her,” Smith said.

“We’ve run her through numerous scenarios, and she’s been very reliable in her statements to us. Whether we can say you can take it to the bank and say this is them, that’s a pretty big jump.

“McCluskey’s arrest hasn’t changed one thing for us at this point.”

McCluskey and Welch were being held in jail in lieu of $1 million bail each.

They were scheduled for preliminary hearings in Kingman later this month.

When a judge asked Mc-Cluskey his address Friday, he said “I don’t have one.”

She then marked down the Arizona Department of Corrections as his residence.

To that, McCluskey said, “Yeah, I guess that would be it, yeah.”

Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press and Adam Wallworth of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.