BOISE, Idaho — A prisoner from Idaho escaped from a Boise hospital after the guards who were watching him were beaten up. He is scheduled to be sentenced for escape on Friday morning.
Skylar Meade admitted to escaping and getting a harsher sentence for being a repeat offender and hurting someone during the crime earlier this year. He could spend the rest of his life in jail when 4th District Judge Nancy Baskin gives her punishment.
In the early hours of March 20, the Idaho Department of Correction took Meade to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center for treatment of injuries he had caused himself. This is when the case started. Around 2 a.m., as prison guards were getting ready to take Meade back to jail, officials say an accomplice outside the hospital started shooting.
Prosecutors say Nicholas Umphenour shot two of the prison staff.
A third cop was hurt when another officer shot him because they thought he was the shooter. All three of the cops lived through their injuries.
Investigators say Meade and Umphenour left the scene of the crime and then drove for several hours to north-central Idaho. They then came back to the southern half of the state and were caught about 36 hours after the attack on the hospital.
Police said that both men were part of a white supremacist gang and had been locked up at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, where they were sometimes housed together.
Meade, who was 31 years old at the time, was off the hook for 20 years because he shot at a sheriff’s sergeant during a high-speed drive. Umphenour got out of jail in January after being charged with grand theft and illegally having a gun.
Three charges of aggravated battery on police officers, using a firearm during a crime, and helping someone escape are all felonies that Umphenour is being charged with. In May, when asked to enter a plea to those charges, he didn’t say anything. The judge then made a not-guilty plea on his behalf. He is going to be tried for these charges in October.
The two men were also charged with murder in Nez Perce County in June in the death of 83-year-old James Mauney of Juliaetta, Idaho. Police in Idaho State said that Mauney’s body parts were found near Leland, Idaho. The death of another guy in the area, which state police say may be linked to the case, is still being looked into.