Authorities said Friday they believe the deaths of an 83-year-old dog walker and a 72-year-old man who lived in a remote mountain cabin are connected to the gunman's escape. white supremacist prison gang members in idaho and an accomplice in the Boise hospital ambush.
Escaped inmate Skylar Meade and her recently released accomplice, Nicholas Amphenol, both members of the Aryan Knights gang, were arrested Thursday afternoon in Twin Falls, Idaho.Their arrests came 36 hours after Amfenneur was shot and wounded. two idaho correctional officers Police said they were preparing to transfer Mead from the hospital to the jail.
Investigators said Thursday that Meade and Amphenol may have killed two men while on the run in northern Idaho's Nez Perce and Clearwater counties, about seven hours away from where they were arrested. did.
On Friday, coroner's officials identified the Nez Perce County victim as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta. He went missing Wednesday after leaving his home in a silver Chrysler Pacifica minivan with his two dogs, a white Jack Russell terrier and a white Jack Russell terrier. Reported. Brown Chesapeake Bay Retriever — On the trail.
“He's my everything,” said his wife, Lilia Mohney, her voice shaking.
Idaho State Police returned the dog to the family. One of them, Leo, “is missing him so much that he goes out into the garden crying and looking for him,” Lilia Morney said.
The Clearwater County victim was Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside a remote cabin near Orofino.
“I cannot understand the senseless killing of this beautiful man,” Henderson's partner, Ron Thompson, told The Associated Press on Friday. “What a pointless, pointless thing to do.”
Thompson and Henderson said they met Amphenol through another “neighborhood kid” they adopted about 10 years ago. Amphenol, who was in his late teens at the time, had a falling out with his father and was staying in a cabin with his father, Thompson said. Henderson and Thompson for about a month.
Thompson said living with Amphenol was scary because he was “always talking about shooting people.” Eventually, the couple kicked him out.
Thompson and Henderson met through a dating website in 2006 and have since become life partners, but Thompson left the cabin and resettled in Seattle in 2015 after growing tired of the isolated neighborhood. Henderson, who is 17 years older than Thompson, found it difficult to publicly announce their marital status in conservative Idaho, and the two never married.
“It wasn't known that we were a couple, but we never talked about it,” he said.
They dreamed of living together again, he said.
About a month ago, Mr. Infenour, who had just been released from prison after serving time for theft and gun convictions, trudged through the deep snow to spend an hour with Mr. Henderson at his cabin, drinking coffee and talking. Thompson said Henderson was anxious about the visit and didn't know why Amphenol had come.
On Wednesday, when Thompson learned that Amphenol was involved in Mead's escape from the hospital, he became concerned and called the sheriff's office to request that a deputy check on Henderson.
Clearwater County Coroner Dennis Fuller announced Friday that police found a man dead outside his home and also found what appeared to be the shackles of an escaped inmate.
Mr Fuller described Mr Thompson as “a kind old man who took in bad people and tried to help them.”
According to Idaho State Police, Mauney's stolen minivan was found Thursday at a home in Twin Falls, and while police secured the scene, Mead and Amphenol attempted to flee in another vehicle but were arrested. announced.
On Friday, they made their first court appearance along with the woman who was driving one of the two cars they were in at the time of their arrest. Mead and Amphenol were being held on $2 million bail.
The woman, identified as Tonia Huber, was charged with harboring a fugitive from police and drug possession. Judge Ben Harmer of Idaho's 5th Judicial District set her bail after prosecutors said she drove 100 mph (161 kph) through her neighborhood trying to evade police. It was set at $500,000.
None of the three entered a plea.
Mead, 31, is sentenced to 20 years in prison He was charged in 2017 with shooting a sheriff's sergeant during a high-speed chase. Amphenol was released from the same prison, the Idaho Maximum Security Facility in Kuna, south of Boise, in January. Officials said the two were sometimes incarcerated together and had mutual friends in and out of prison.
The attack on the correctional officers occurred just after 2 a.m. Wednesday in the ambulance bay at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center as Mead was being prepared to be returned to prison. Officials said the man was taken to a hospital early in the evening due to his injuries.
Police said one police officer shot dead by Infenneur after the ambush was in critical but stable condition, and a second police officer suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries. A third correctional officer also sustained non-life-threatening injuries when responding officers mistakenly fired because the gunman was still in the emergency room and they saw an armed person near the entrance. did.
Corrections Commissioner Josh Tewald said Thursday that one guard has been released from the hospital and the other two are stable and improving.
The department is reviewing its policies and practices in light of escapes, he said.The attack occurred during wave of gun violence Hospitals and medical centers are struggling to adapt to the growing threat.
“We're putting all our resources into understanding exactly how they came up with their plan,” Tewald said.
Meade had recently been in solitary confinement because authorities deemed him a safety risk.
The Aryan Knights prison gang was formed in the mid-1990s in Idaho. Federal prosecutors described it in court documents as a “scourge” in the state's prison system.
“Gangs driven by hatred engage in various types of criminal activity and cast a shadow of intimidation, addiction and violence on prison life.” the prosecutor wrote.
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Johnson reported from Seattle and Thiessen from Anchorage, Alaska.