Two members of a white supremacist Idaho prison gang, including an inmate and the man accused of helping him escape an armed ambush at a Boise hospital, are scheduled to appear in court Monday for a preliminary hearing, along with a woman accused of providing a vehicle. used for 36 hours on the flight.
The inmate, Skylar Meade, and Nicholas Umphenour, who police say opened fire on corrections officers transporting Meade from the hospital last month, have both been charged in the escape, along with Tia Garcia, who is accused of falsely reporting having her car reported stolen shortly after the attack.
Umphenour additionally faces three counts of aggravated battery on an officer and use of a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony, charges stemming from the ambush.
Meade and Umphenour, who are each being held on $2 million bail, are also suspected in the deaths of two men in Clearwater and Nez Perce counties, about a seven-hour drive north of where they were arrested in Twin Falls, Idaho .
The murder victims have been identified as James L. Mauney, 83, of Juliaetta, Idaho, who was reported missing when he failed to return from walking his dogs, and Gerald Don Henderson, 72, who was found dead outside his secluded hut at Orofino. , Idaho.
Authorities said Henderson took Umphenour in for about a month when he was in his late teens. Police said Umphenour and Meade stole Mauney’s minivan and used it to get to the Twin Falls area.
Officials with the Idaho Department of Correction have said Meade and Umphenour are members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist prison gang, which federal prosecutors have described as a “scourge” on the state’s correctional system.
Meade, 31, served 20 years at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, south of Boise, for shooting at a sheriff’s sergeant during a chase. Umphenour was released from the same prison in January after serving a prison term for theft and firearms convictions.
The two were sometimes housed together and had mutual friends in and out of prison, officials said. Meade was recently held in solitary confinement because officials deemed him a security risk.
The attack on the corrections officers took place just after 2 a.m. on March 20 in the ambulance room of the Sint-Alfonsus Regional Medical Center. Meade was taken to the hospital earlier that night for self-harm, officials said, but he refused treatment upon arrival.
Two corrections officers were injured in the attack and a third was shot by responding police officers who mistook him for the shooter. Everyone is expected to recover.
According to investigators, one other person has been charged in connection with the escape: Tonia Huber, who was driving the truck Meade was in when he was arrested. Huber has been charged with harboring a fugitive, eluding police and drug possession.
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Thiessen reported from Anchorage, Alaska.
