Jailer, Judge-Executive blame each other for recent jail escapes

A pair of prisoners at the Whitley County Jail apparently escaped out of the same hole in the ceiling early Monday morning that three other prisoners escaped through in late December. This prompted a dispute between the jailer and the fiscal court over whose fault the escape is.
Jail officials said that Glennis Isaacs and James Merida escaped between 5:30 – 7 a.m. Monday.
A jail spokesperson said a deputy jailer observed the two men while checking on a smoke alarm that went off in the cell about 5:30 a.m., and that they were discovered missing about 7 a.m.
The two men apparently loosened up the screws holding the locking mechanism on a access panel inside their cell block so they could gain access to a work area where plumbing pipes were located.
Jailer Jerry Taylor said he’s not sure how the men got the locking mechanism loose. He theorizes that they may have found a way of beating it open. Jail officials and police said that the two men apparently made their way through a previous hole used by three former escapees, who had sawed through rebar in late December enabling them to gain access to the ventilation system, which lead them ot the roof and freedom.
Whitley County Sheriff Lawrence Hodge said Isaacs was captured on Smith Bend near Ky. 92E about 10 a.m. Monday after deputies received a tip about his possible location.
“I got an anonymous phone call that said he had escaped, and this is where we might be able to find him. We had the phone number, and traced the phone number to that address. It was just good police work,” Hodge said adding that he still hasn’t figured out who placed the call to police. “There was nobody there but him.”
Police found Isaacs hiding in a closest under a pile of clothes, Hodge added.
Isaacs has been charged with second-degree escape, and authorities plan to present the case to the Whitley County Grand Jury, which is scheduled to meet later this week, Hodge said.
Officers, who captured Isaacs, included: Hodge, Chief Deputy Tim Shelley, Lt. Todd Shelley, and Kentucky State Police Trooper Scott Bunch.
Isaac was in jail being held on a manufacturing methamphetamine charge.
Merida is a Knox County prisoner, who was being held on a burglary charge.
Merida, 25, is still on the loose. He is 5’10” tall and weighs 175 pounds with short brown hair, blue eyes, a slender build, and was last seen wearing gray sweats.
Hodge said authorities believe that he is hiding in Knox County.
“If he comes to Whitley County we will snatch him. If he stays over in Knox he is safe,” Hodge added.
Anyone having any information on Merida’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Kentucky State Police.
Taylor said he reported the hole through the rebar to both Patrick and Jim Woodrum, a criminal justice consultant who is working with the county on jail issues, about three months ago when the first escape happened, but that he never received any word on when the broken rebar would be fixed.
“The solution is simply the fiscal court should hire somebody, it should be Harold Lynn Douglas because they owe the man and will not pay him, but somebody needs to correct the problem where they can’t just climb up there, and they are home free,” Taylor said.
“The way the fiscal court looks at it, I’m sure is that it is making old Jerry look bad, but Jerry is not going to take the blame for it. If it was something I had done wrong, it would be different,” Taylor said.
“The same man that is down there advising the fiscal court not to pay the Douglas boy for coming up here to complete the jail, is the same man, who left this jail like it is. He was overseeing the building of this jail.”
Whitley County Judge-Executive Mike Patrick said Monday afternoon that a contractor had been contacted, and that the contractor was expected to examine the jail Tuesday, and have repairs done by the end of the week.
In terms of the inmates escaping through the same hole used by the last prisoners, Patrick said he would have assumed Taylor would have taken measures to keep the inmates from getting into that area.
Taylor said he has been checking the access panels in the cell blocks to see if they are tampered with on a regular basis, and that the last inspection was just a few days ago.
Taylor said he has no idea how long the two have been planning their escape.
Following the prior escape, Taylor said one additional security precaution he might take could be locking the prisoners in their individual cells at night rather than allowing them to stay loose in the common area of their cell blocks.
Has the jail started doing this?
“We have and haven’t. They should have been locked down in their individual cells, but if they want to get out, they will get out during the day time like they have during the night time,” Taylor said. “They can go through those panels the same during the daytime the same they can the night time.”
Taylor said it wouldn’t be much harder to get out during the day because the jail staff is so busy.
When prisoners get their food trays in the cell, a deputy jailer or trustee will call their name out, but Taylor said he doesn’t know the names and faces of 200 inmates, and that they could simply have someone else come up to get their food tray.
Taylor said the solution to preventing future escapes in this manner will be placing some type of concrete or steel barrier between the pipes and the ductwork inside the access areas so prisoners can’t simply climb up the pipes.
Patrick said the county would be taking a look at how the escapes happened, and what needs to be done to keep them from happening again.
Since the new Whitley County Jail opened in August, there have been seven escapes.