By Jamie Satterfield
Knoxville News-Sentinel
SEVIER COUNTY, Tenn. — Guards at the Washington County Detention Center apparently were unaware of an escape attempt last November until they noticed a makeshift rope of braided strips of torn bed sheets dangling from a fence. A quick check of inmate bedding revealed the alleged culprit — convicted bank robber and carjacker Michael Ogle, according to records.
The 31-year-old Sevier County man has been indicted in U.S. District Court for allegedly trying to escape the Washington County Detention Center, where he was being held awaiting transfer into the U.S. Bureau of Prisons following his Nov. 5 sentencing as ringleader in a takeoverstyle bank robbery and a carjacking that resulted when the getaway vehicle broke down. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Stone sought the indictment earlier this month. Ogle is set to be arraigned on Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Guyton.
Ogle, brother Jeremy Ogle and friend David Rutledge pleaded guilty to the August 2008 takeover robbery of a BB&T bank branch in Seymour and carjacking a good Samaritan who stopped to help when the trio’s getaway vehicle broke down during their flight from the bank.
Jeremy Ogle is serving a 20-year sentence. Rutledge received a sentence of 18 years, nine months.
Michael Ogle admitted he was the ringleader and brandished a shotgun during the robbery. He racked up a 20year, five-month prison term and was awaiting transfer to a federal prison when he allegedly hatched a plan to escape three weeks after his sentencing.
According to records, Ogle fashioned a rope by braiding strips of his bed sheets and turned a piece of metal from his jail bunk into a hook he affixed to the end of the rope. The plan? Toss the rope over a razor-wire topped fence and hook onto the other side of the fencing, shimmy up the rope, scale the fence and run.
There were problems, however, according to records. The makeshift rope became entangled in the razor wire, and the hook proved unhelpful in allowing the braided bedsheets to support Ogle’s weight, records allege.
Ogle allegedly gave up and returned to the recreation yard, his failed plot undetected. But he left behind a clue - the dangling rope, authorities said.
All the guards had to do to find the escapee wannabe was to find the inmate whose bunk was missing some metal and bed sheets.
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