AR-News: (FL - US) Horse sniffs out jail escapee

Tue Apr 27 10:26:26 EDT 2004

Source: St.Petersburg Times 

LARGO - Deb Haines thought the deputies would call her crazy if she told them of her hunch. 

But two very strange things had happened in the Largo neighborhood where Haines was caring for her boyfriend's horse Friday afternoon. 

First, a suspect had escaped from the nearby Pinellas County Jail and was believed to be lurking somewhere in the area. 

And darn it if the mare in the horse pasture wasn't acting strange. 

Sierra, a national champion cow horse, had started raising a ruckus Friday afternoon. Normally a docile mare, Sierra first began circling the pasture, then reared up. She seemed to be concerned about a particular area near the corner of the pasture. 

About that time, Pinellas sheriff's deputies in search of the suspect, Timothy L. Humphrey, swept into the area. Haines told them how Sierra had been acting. She wondered if the horse knew someone was hiding in that area. 

"I think they all thought I was whacked," she said. 

But when deputies moved into the spot where the horse was circling, they found Humphrey curled around the bottom of a tree, trying to camouflage himself in a thatch of underbrush. After a brief struggle, Humphrey was taken into custody. 

Haines said one of the deputies walked up to her after the suspect was caught and told her, "You and the horse were dead-on." 

Pinellas sheriff's officials acknowledged that horse power certainly played a factor in the escapee's capture. 

"It was a good assist," sheriff's office spokesman Mac McMullen said. 

But deputies say they also had essentially trapped Humphrey in the area of the horse pasture after receiving at least one 911 call that he had been sighted there. 

"I think we had him contained the whole time," said Deputy Daniel Doherty, who was in a perimeter set up in the area. "I think he was just playing in the woods the whole time." 

Sheriff's officials said Humphrey, 37, who faces a charge that he was involved in the death of a woman who was about to testify against him in court, escaped from a transport van after a fellow inmate helped him slip out of the van. 

Preliminary reports state that a transport deputy also failed to properly secure Humphrey in the van, while a gate that should have closed behind the van also wasn't shut. 

After getting out of the van, which was left unmanned, Humphrey ran away and somehow slipped outside the jail facility. Dozens of deputies set up a 2-mile perimeter that stretched into surrounding neighborhoods. 

By using the Global Positioning System in their squad cars, deputies could ensure no gaping holes were left in the perimeter. 

For instance, when deputies received information of a potential sighting, several units would begin to move in. By looking at the GPS, deputies could tell their comrades to hold their positions. 

"There were so many sightings of a possible suspect," Doherty said. 

Soon, there was a sighting near the horse pastures. And Haines noticed Sierra acting strangely. 

"When they are trying to tell you something, they will circle you, and she kept circling around me, and then she would come back and look at me and run back to the corner," Haines said. 

Humphrey's jailbreak lasted more than three hours and took him more than a mile away from the jail. Sheriff's officials have launched an internal investigation that will determine if any jail deputies violated any policies or procedures. [Last modified April 21, 2004, 01:05:42] 

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