By Tom Gilchrist
Bay City Times
CASEVILLE, Mich. — A jail inmate never made it to Bay City to meet his girlfriend after fleeing a work crew Tuesday, but he did encounter a police dog named Ronda.
Ronda, a Belgian Malinois, and her handler, Bad Axe Police Department Sgt. Michael Anderson, found 19-year-old John P. Nugent hiding in a commercial trash bin Tuesday night.
The escapee surrendered without incident at about 7:30 p.m., police said.
Huron County Sheriff Kent D. Tibbits said Nugent, of Sebewaing and formerly of Caseville, fled a jail work crew at Caseville High School on Tuesday afternoon.
About 14 police officers from six agencies searched for Nugent before the tracking dog found him in the trash bin in the Hartshorn subdivision near M-15 in Caseville Township, the sheriff said.
Huron County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Brian Wisenbaugh spotted Nugent running behind some cottages about 7:20 p.m. after a witness reported a suspicious man walking in that area.
Wisenbaugh then alerted Sgt. Anderson and Ronda.
Nugent had been serving 50 days in jail for an alcohol-related crime. Tibbits said officers learned the inmate might try to flee to Bay City to meet a girlfriend, and said Nugent had been scheduled for release from jail on July 10.
Nugent had been assigned to work on a crew of nine inmates laboring inside classrooms at Caseville High School. Two corrections officers found him missing during a routine head count.
Later on Tuesday afternoon, at about 3:50 p.m., police stopped a suspicious vehicle near the corner of Griggs and Conkey roads, several miles east of Caseville.
Tibbits said two young men - one of whom was Nugent - quickly exited the vehicle, and Nugent escaped by running through a ditch, across two fields and into a wooded area near Sleeper State Park.
Tibbits said officers planned to submit a report on the incident to Huron County Prosecutor Mark Gaertner on Wednesday.
Copyright 2008 Bay City Times