A fourth person, Tia J. Garcia, has been charged in connection with an ambush that allowed Idaho inmate Skylar Meade to escape while being discharged from the hospital. Garcia, 27, owned the car used in the escape, along with Nicholas Umphenour. Police are investigating how the ambush was planned and carried out. Garcia falsely reported the car stolen after the incident, and text messages indicate that Umphenour instructed her to do so. Meade and Umphenour were tracked down by police about 36 hours after their escape, but they are also suspected in the killings of two men while on the run, though they have not been charged in the killings.
Garcia is an acquaintance of Umphenour and Meade, and she picked up Umphenour from the airport when he arrived in Boise. They were seen in surveillance video together in several places around the city. Garcia lives with her sister and has a criminal record that includes six felonies and four misdemeanors. She is being held on $1 million bail and faces a charge of aiding and abetting escape. Authorities are still investigating exactly how the escape was planned and executed, considering potential ties to the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang which both. Meade and Umphenour were both members of the gang, and her were apparently had mutual friends in and out of prison officials said.
Meade, 31, was serving 20 years in prison for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase, while Umphenour was a release from he same prison in January. The attack on the corrections officers came after 2 a.m. in the ambulance bay of a hospital where Meade was being treated for injuries. Authorities are still looking into the ambush and how it was planned. The Idaho State Police found shackles at a cabin where was tenant by the man from whose house Umphenour has been staying. They later fleed in two different cars and were apprehended. The Director of Idaho Department of Correction has promised to review policies and practices in the light of the escape and attack on officer.
While on the run, Umphenour and Meade are suspected of killing two men in northern Idaho, a 72-year-old resident and a 83-year-old who was reported missing when he didn’t return from his walk. Investigators found shackles at a cabin and a minivan was located much South. The driver of the truck with Meade, Tonia Huber, charges for harboring fugitive, eluding police and drug possession. Huber’s attorney maintains her presumption of innocence and awaiting further trials. The three accused along with Garcia face preliminary hearings in April. The Idaho Department of Corrections is reviewing its policies and practices in the light of the escape and the attacks on the officers at the hospital which have been challenging for the hospitals with rise in threats of violence.
