Russell Ashford is due in court in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday afternoon for an extradition hearing after his arrest over the weekend on a Montgomery County warrant tied to an alleged probation violation. The hearing could send him back to Maryland while the search continues for Antoinette Forbes, the Northwest D.C. mother who has been missing for more than a week.
A spokesperson for the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said Ashford was arrested in Pennsylvania on the warrant, and Beaver County District Attorney Nate Bible said the violation was triggered when Ashford left the state for Maryland or the D.C. area. Bible said license plate readers were used to pick up Ashford’s truck and track his movements, a detail that underscores how the case moved from a local arrest to a cross-state hearing in a matter of days.
Forbes was last seen at her home along Nebraska Avenue near the American University campus, and her family and friends say she left behind her keys, wallet, both cell phones and her car. They have said her disappearance is out of character. The Metropolitan Police Department said the search for the missing mother is ongoing.
The hard edge in the case is that Ashford is being pursued for a probation violation while he has not been arrested or charged in connection with Forbes’ disappearance. Court records reviewed by 7News show the two have been tied up in a years-long custody battle over their child, and those filings also show Ashford was convicted of assaulting Forbes in 2021. In a statement of probable cause, Ashford told an officer responding to the incident that he had “just beat up his ex.” Forbes later told detectives he threw her against a staircase and onto the kitchen floor before repeatedly banging her head against the floor, and she said he hit her head at least a dozen times before she lost consciousness. Their son was inside the home when the assault happened, and a neighbor took the child away from the scene.
Wednesday’s hearing is now the next clear step in a case that keeps splitting in two: one track focused on a probation violation in Pennsylvania, and another on the still-open search for Forbes in D.C. What remains unanswered is whether the evidence that brought Ashford to court for extradition will ever connect him to her disappearance.
