Whitley Jail escapee capture Saturday in London following 5-day manhunt

Above, Whtiley County Deputy Jailer Steve Lundy (left) processes 34-year-old Shannon Wynn at the Whitley County Detention Center Saturday morning. Wynn was recaptured after walking away from a work release detail last Monday.

A Whitley County Jail work release inmate who walked off the job and has been missing since Monday is back in custody after being apprehended without incident after being spotted walking along a London roadway.

Thirty-four-year-old Shannon Wynn eluded authorities for roughly five and a half days after sneaking away from his work detail at the Kentucky Highway Garage at about 12:30 p.m. Monday. He surrendered as soon as London City police officers spotted him Saturday morning walking on the roadway near I-75 Exit 39 in London.

"When they pulled up, he just gave up. He didn’t try to run or anything," said Whitley County Detention Center Deputy Jailer Maj. Steve Lundy. "He said he was tired of running and that he wanted to get back in here … He said he was sorry about this. He didn’t have a good time while he was out, it was rough. He was tired and ready to quit."

Wynn’s escape from custody prompted a robust manhunt that involved deputy jailers, Williamsburg City Police, Kentucky State Police, London City Police, the Laurel and Whitley County Sheriff’s Departments, K-9 units and even a specialized bloodhound tracking team from Tennessee.

Authorities received numerous tips concerning Wynn’s whereabouts and feel like they were close to nabbing him several times during the cat-and-mouse pursuit.

Wynn was serving time for violating the conditions of his parole after being convicted of manufacturing methamphetamine. He was arrested again in January for manufacturing meth again, endangering the welfare of a minor and for possession of a controlled substance. A warrant had been issued for his arrest on March 26.

He was classified by the Kentucky Department of Corrections as a Level 1 work release inmate, clearing him to work on just about any work release detail. Level 1 is the lowest classification, which essentially means an inmate has no violent criminal history and is not likely to pose a threat to the community.

"Until this we’ve had no problems out of him here at the jail … never had any," Lundy said. "We were really surprised he walked off. He’s been in jail here before on work detail and never tried to escape or anything. He was a good worker."

Lundy retrieved Wynn Saturday and brought him back to the jail. Wynn refused to take questions from the News Journal.
Lundy said Wynn told him he decided to make a break for freedom on an impulse.

"He said he just couldn’t stand it any longer," Lundy said. "He said every day it got worse and he wanted to be out and running around because the weather was so pretty and stuff. Whether he planned this or not, we don’t really know."

Police say Wynn claimed he traveled mostly by foot and hitchhiked while on the loose. He was sighted along Hwy. 92 almost to Bell County at one point, over 17 miles from Williamsburg.

But they also believe he had some help.

On Thursday police arrested a Williamsburg woman, who allegedly helped him elude capture.

About 11 p.m. Thursday, Williamsburg Police Detective Bobby Freeman charged Katherine Wheeler, 39, of R.D. Rains Road, with first-degree hindering prosecution or apprehension and criminal complicity to commit second-degree escape.

"Through an investigation, officers determined that Wheeler was helping 34-year-old Shannon Wynn evade authorities," Williamsburg Police Chief Wayne Bird said in a release.

According to her arrest citation, Wheeler helped Wynn with hiding and aided him in his escape.

"She was with Shannon Wynn for several days while he was on the run," Freeman wrote on the citation.

District Judge Cathy Prewitt ordered her held without bond Friday morning.

Lundy said he believes someone picked Wynn up in a vehicle from the highway garage. It could have been Wheeler. At one point, authorities had a tip that he was traveling in a dark colored SUV.

Whitley County Jailer Ken Mobley said he and his jail staff worked tirelessly alongside local police agencies to ensure Wynn was returned to custody.

"I can’t thank Williamsburg Police Chief Wayne Bird and District 9 State Emergency Management Director Jerry Rains enough for all their help," Mobley said. "They did everything in their power to help bring this guy in."

Mobley said Williamsburg Police and others used search dogs several times in an effort to track Wynn’s movements. Police determined that Wynn had gone to Laurel County and had focused searches for him there leading up to his arrest.
Though he is back in custody, Wynn’s escape did cause something of a political dust up this week.

Whitley County Sheriff Colan Harrell indicated he might have been purposefully left out of the loop after Wynn escaped, characterizing the way it was handled as "good ol’ boy stuff." He said he learned of the escape over a day later when a member of the community asked him about it while he was eating dinner at a Corbin restaurant. Mobley has made no secret of the fact that he plans to run against Harrell in the 2014 Republican Primary for the Sheriff post.

Following Wynn’s capture Saturday, Mobley strenuously denied either he or his jail staff did anything improper and provided significant evidence to back up his claim. Audio recordings from Whitley County’s 911 Center show the jail reported the escape shortly after it happened, and provided details on Wynn’s appearance to assist in the search. Immediately thereafter, the dispatcher on duty issued a Be-On-The-Lookout (BOLO) alert to all county officers reporting the escape. Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Shelley acknowledged the radio traffic.

Also, Mobley provided video with accompanying audio from the jail’s booking area showing Chief Deputy Jailer Sandra Hoke providing Whitley County Deputy Sheriff Shawn Jackson a photograph of Wynn and informing him of the escape. The BOLO alert given by the dispatch center can also be heard from a police radio in the room during the exchange.

Jackson can later be heard obtaining directions to Wynn’s home from another deputy jailer before leaving the intake area.

"I want to thank the Sheriff for absolutely nothing," Mobley said. "All he did was stir up a bunch of stuff over this that wasn’t true, and caused a bunch of headaches."

In response, Harrell said he disagreed with how dissemination of information regarding the escape was handled and that someone should have notified either he or one of the supervisors in his department personally as soon as the escape happened. He also said Jackson didn’t have time to respond to the escape situation because he had to take a suspect he arrested to the hospital to be treated for high blood pressure.

"We are a professional agency," Harrell said. "We will work with anyone."

"No, I wasn’t OK with the way it was handled."

Harrell said new procedures are being put in place at the dispatch center to ensure nothing slips through the cracks in the future. He said in this particular situation, a warrant for Wynn’s arrest should have been obtained sooner and that leadership in all local police agencies should have been contacted.

Harrell has also disagreed with Wynn’s classification as a work release inmate. Those determinations are made by state Department of Corrections’ officials, not on a local level.