Stranger, benefactor said killed by fugitives
Authorities said Friday they believe the deaths of an 83-yearold man who was walking his dogs and a 72-year-old man who lived in a remote cabin are connected to the escape of an Idaho white supremacist prison gang member and an accomplice after a Boise hospital ambush.
The escaped prisoner, Skylar Meade, and the accomplice, a recently released inmate named Nicholas Umphenour — both members of the Aryan Knights gang — were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho, on Thursday afternoon. Their arrests came 36 hours after Umphenour shot and wounded two Idaho corrections officers while they were preparing to return Meade to prison from a hospital, police said.
Investigators said Thursday that while on the run, Meade and Umphenour may have been responsible for the deaths of two men, one in Nez Perce County and the other in Clearwater County, both in northern Idaho, about seven hours away from where they were arrested.
Coroners on Friday identified the victim in Nez Perce County as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, who was reported missing on Wednesday when he left home in his silver Chrysler Pacifica minivan to take his two dogs — a white Jack Russell terrier and a brown Chesapeake Bay retriever — to a walking path.
“He’s my everything,” said his wife, Liliia Mauney, her voice cracking.
Idaho State Police returned the dogs to the family. One, Leo, “really misses him, he cries and goes out looking in the yard, looking for him,” Liliia Mauney said.
The victim in Clearwater County was Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his remote cabin near Orofino.
“I can’t understand the senseless murder of this beautiful man,” Henderson’s partner, Ron Thompson, told The Associated Press on Friday. “Such a senseless, senseless thing to do.”
Thompson said he and Henderson met Umphenour about a decade ago through another “neighbor kid” they had taken in. Umphenour, who was then in his late teens, was not getting along with his father, Thompson said, and he stayed at the cabin with Henderson and Thompson for about a month.
Living with Umphenour was frightening, Thompson said, because he “would always talk about shooting people.” The couple eventually kicked him out.
Thompson and Henderson met through a dating site in 2006 and had been life partners since, though Thompson moved out of the cabin in 2015 and resettled in Seattle because he grew tired of the isolated area. Henderson, who was 17 years older than Thompson, had difficulty sharing publicly that they were a couple in conservative Idaho, and the two never married.
They dreamed of moving back in together, he said.
About a month ago, Umphenour — fresh out of prison, where he served time on theft and gun convictions — trudged through deep snow to spend an hour at the cabin with Henderson, drinking coffee and talking. Henderson felt uneasy about the visit and wasn’t sure why Umphenour had come, Thompson said.
On Wednesday, when Thompson learned that Umphenour had been linked to Meade’s escape from the hospital, he grew worried and called the sheriff’s office to request that deputies check in on Henderson.
Police found him dead outside his home, where they also found what may have been the escaped prisoner’s shackles, Clearwater County Coroner Dennis Fuller said Friday.
Mauney’s stolen minivan was found at a home in Twin Falls on Thursday, and as police secured the area, Meade and Umphenour tried to flee in different vehicles but were arrested, Idaho State Police said.
They made initial court appearances Friday, along with a woman who drove one of the two vehicles they were traveling in when they were arrested. Meade and Umphenour were being held in lieu of $2 million bond.
The woman, identified as Tonia Huber, was charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.