Police here considered flying Ryan Muncey back from Illinois on a sort of Con Air. The all-prisoners plane is run by the U.S. Marshals Service.

But the process can take up to two weeks. Too slow, they decided.

So Muncey, who was charged with murder in connection with a stabbing in Auburn last week, caught a commercial flight into Manchester, N.H., early Wednesday morning with a pair of plainclothes detectives trying to keep a low profile.

“It becomes a lot of logistics under pressure,” said Maine State Police Lt. Brian McDonough, who manages the southern Maine criminal division.

It’s one of those details that go into a cross-country extradition.

Police got the call at 2 a.m. Sunday that Muncey’s girlfriend, Alisha Turner, had turned herself in and Muncey was nearby. McDonough had already warned two detectives to keep their bags packed. They left for Illinois on Sunday evening.

He said in the decision to drive versus fly, distance and speed are factors.

Police want to “get to these people as soon as we can to attempt to get interviews done with them,” he said. Within New England and New York, it’s typically by car.

There’s also a state police aircraft available.

“When you’re going for a significant flight, our plane tends to be too small,” he said.

For the trip home, detectives let airport security, the Transportation Security Administration and the pilot know they were escorting a fugitive. They also would have boarded the plane first.

“We throw a jacket or a sweater on the individual’s hands, over the cuffs. It won’t be blatant in front of everybody,” McDonough said.

Still undecided on Wednesday, he said, was how to ship evidence collected in Illinois and whether to tow Muncey’s impounded Ford Mustang all the way back to Maine.

Costs hadn’t been tallied up for the trip. A preliminary estimate for airplane tickets alone was around $3,500.

Maine Deputy Attorney General William Stokes said every district attorney’s office has an extradition account funded by the money from people who’ve defaulted on bail.

The money for Muncey’s extradition will come from the Androscoggin County DA’s account.

The Attorney General’s Office only gets involved when bringing back people wanted on homicide charges or when someone doesn’t agree to return to the state voluntarily. Stokes didn’t have figures on how often people facing lesser charges are extradited to Maine; it’s often the DA’s call and done without having to tell the AG’s office.

“Serious cases, they do. Less serious cases, they decline to extradite,” he said.

Stokes said the state only has to escort someone facing murder charges every few years.