Virginia Beach, Va. — United States marshals apprehended a man who stayed on the run for more than three years after the Wake County Sheriff's Office named him a suspect in a 2004 armed home invasion.

Tips lead law enforcement to believe that Halim James Hardnett, 22, had fled to Virginia Beach to stay with family.

Marshals moved in to catch Hardnett after seeing him leave a house where they had set up surveillance Friday morning. Hardnett tried to flee, but marshals caught him after a brief foot chase.

Authorities charged Hardnett with first-degree kidnapping, first-degree burglary and robbery with a dangerous weapon.

Investigators said Hardnett and several other individuals forced their way into a Wake County home, intending to rob the residents on April 4, 2006.

Armed with a handgun, Hardnett forced a woman into a bathroom while the others ransacked the house. Hardnett pistol-whipped the woman and bound her hands with a telephone cord, marshals said.

Hardnett fled Wake County after the home invasion and had been a fugitive ever since.

The U.S. Marshals Violent Fugitive Task Force, based in Raleigh, is comprised of law enforcement agents from the U.S. Marshals Service; Wake County Sheriff’s Office; Raleigh, Wake and Sharpsburg police departments; and state Division of Community Corrections.

In 2007, U.S. marshals task forces arrested more than 43,000 state and local fugitives and typically arrest more federal fugitives annually than all other federal agencies combined.