Relatives, friends allegedly helped fugitive inmates
Jail officials say incident will be investigated
After two inmates escaped from the Sandoval County Detention Center on Friday night, family and friends helped them make their way south to neighboring counties, according to Sandoval County officials.
Sidney Hill, the county spokesman, said the sheriff’s office is still investigating what charges will be filed against the escapees and anyone who helped them along the way.
Paul Garcia, 25, and Blake McPherson, 21, were both back in custody by Sunday afternoon.
Garcia is one of two suspects in the high-profile deaths of Shaunna Arredondo-Boling and her 14-yearold daughter, Shaylee Boling, in midJanuary. Police say he was in a stolen van that crashed into their car as he and his accomplice, Elexus Groves,
fled from police.
Garcia had been transferred to the Sandoval County jail for a court hearing in an unrelated petty misdemeanor case.
McPherson was in the Sandoval County jail on charges of receiving or transferring a stolen motor vehicle and leaving the scene of an accident.
Hill said the pair slipped out of the center’s recreation yard through a hole in the fence around 8:30 p.m. Friday. He said they traveled north on foot to a construction area on U.S. 550 across from the Santa Ana Star Casino.
“Upon entering the construction site, both escapees removed their orange jump suits and continued their escape wearing only the white thermal underwear and footwear issued by the detention center,” Hill said.
Then they crossed the river and went to a house in Bernalillo where one of Garcia’s friends lives.
Hill said that’s where Garcia changed clothes and made several phone calls. Hill said Garcia’s relative picked up him and McPherson at another house in Bernalillo, but he didn’t say who lived at that house.
Garcia’s relative then drove him and McPherson to Albuquerque and the pair split up, Hill said.
He said McPherson was taken into custody around noon Saturday after an anonymous tipster led police to an apartment complex near Menaul and University NE. He was booked back into the Sandoval County Detention Center and placed in the restrictive housing unit where he will be monitored more closely, Hill said.
Garcia wasn’t arrested until the following day when a tipster told the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office he was staying with another relative. Deputies and U.S. Marshals arrested Garcia at a house in Meadow Lake, a small community east of Los Lunas, just before 2 p.m. Sunday.
Bernalillo County Sheriff Manny Gonzales said a family member had told deputies that Garcia “was willing to cooperate and turn himself in.”
Garcia was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center again.
Nataura Powdrell-Moore, an MDC spokeswoman, said Garcia had been originally classified as a high-profile inmate based on the murder charges against him. He had been housed in a pod with other inmates facing similar charges that was overseen by two corrections officers.
She said he will still be classified as needing a high level of security and will be under even more scrutiny now.
“(The classification) doesn’t change because he escaped,” Powdrell-Moore said. “But we now know we have to watch him more closely. He’s still going to be classified as high.”
The Sandoval County Detention Center warden said Saturday that Garcia had been in a medium security pod with McPherson before their escape.
Hill said Monday that he doesn’t know what information the jail’s booking staff took into account when Garcia was classified as qualifying for medium security. He said the classification is based on the charges against an inmate, but he doesn’t know if the murder charges against Garcia were taken into account.
“These are questions that will have to be answered when we complete the investigation,” Hill said.
The Sandoval County jail’s staff is conducting an internal investigation to determine how exactly Garcia and McPherson escaped and what can be done to prevent future escapes. Hill said no staff have been disciplined and the investigation will determine if anyone will be.
Hill said the county has also hired an outside consultant for a separate investigation into the escape. Hill said he would not say who is doing that investigation until after the work is completed.