Southern Illinois police have apprehended the couple wanted in Auburn for questioning in connection with the fatal stabbing last week of Casey Stanley.

Ryan Muncey, 28, and Alisha Turner, 25, of Lewiston, are in custody, being held as material witnesses, according to Steve McCausland, spokesman for the Maine State Police.

Turner turned herself in Sunday night in Jonesboro, Ill. There, Turner gave the police information leading to Muncey’s arrest Sunday morning, McCausland said.

Then, at about 7 a.m. Sunday, U.S. marshals, Illinois state police and the Union County sheriff’s deputies swooped down the house of a Turner relative in Cobden, Ill. They arrested Muncey as he was climbing out of a bedroom window.

“We’re having two detectives sent to Illinois to begin the interview process,” McCausland said Sunday night. The couple are being held at the Tri-County jail in Ullin, Ill. McCausland said a court hearing early this week may allow the couple’s extradition to Maine.

The couple’s son, 2, and daughter, 1, are in the care of Turner’s relatives, McCausland said. Police don’t know for sure if the couple brought the children with them to Illinois.

On Thursday, when it became apparent Muncey and Turner had left the Twin Cities area, police issued an all-points bulletin telling police agencies nationwide to be on the watch for the couple. They notified authorities that the couple may have been traveling with their two children.

Back in Maine, Stanley’s girlfriend, Erica Griffin, woke up to news of Muncey and Turner being in custody. “I’ve been praying every day that the people were found,” she said.

Saturday night, she and her mother called TV’s “America’s Most Wanted” to try to get the couple featured on the program. Neither Muncey nor Turner has been officially named as a suspect in Stanley’s death.

Griffin’s mother, Loretta Leet, said she never had any doubt the couple would be apprehended. “The state police and the Auburn cops and the Lewiston cops were right on them,” she said.

Leet said what she wants more than anything, other than to have Stanley back, is to know what would motivate anyone to kill the man she considered her son-in-law. “Why would they take his life? He never hurt anybody, he was never mean to anybody. He was a kind person.”

Police haven’t released any possible motives for the stabbing.

Jen Costello, 26, who was at Stanley’s side when he died Wednesday night, said she’ll be more relieved when charges are pressed. Costello and her sisters, Jackie and Sherry, have been collecting donations for Stanley’s funeral, which his family has had trouble affording.

They’ve placed collection jars at businesses across Lewiston-Auburn, and Jen’s 3-year-old daughter has been collecting donations around Kennedy Park with a photo of Griffin and Stanley stapled to her shirt.

“She’s like the little mascot,” her aunt, Jackie, said.

Griffin said she didn’t know about the fundraising effort until seeing one of the jars at Webb’s Market on Pine Street in Lewiston. “I just started crying. I couldn’t believe it,” she said, calling the Costello sisters “a godsend.”

She said about $150 has been collected toward the $2,500 Stanley’s family owes for funeral costs. Anyone interested in helping can call Loretta Leet at 344-8253.

There will be a candlelight vigil in Bonney Park Monday night to honor Stanley. Family and friends will start arriving at about 7 p.m.