Escaped inmates in court to face murder charge
PALATKA (AP) – Deputies called in a judge for an emergency hearing on murder charges against two escaped inmates hours after they were captured in a dayslong manhunt spanning several states.
The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office wanted to send Doni Ray Brown, 23, and Timothy Wayne Fletcher, 25, to an undisclosed facility out of the area immediately after their Saturday arrest. The two made a first appearance just ahead of midnight Saturday before Seventh Circuit Judge Edward E. Hedstrom, Lt. Johnny Greenwood said.
The men had been missing since escaping the Putnam County Jail early Wednesday morning. Within hours, they had allegedly stolen two vehicles and killed Fletcher’s 66-year-old step-grandmother, Helen Googe, who owned one of the cars.
Greenwood said the men, alleged accomplices on a previous armed robbery, were accidentally placed in the same cell because of a jail records mistake. Fletcher made bail on the robbery, but was soon returned to jail for several counts of failure to appear on an aggravated assault charge. Brown was still being held for the robbery, and the two were reunited.
The cellmates escaped by ripping out a sink and toilet combination from the wall with a jack that Fletcher apparently stole from a county van during a previous court appearance. They crawled through the hole in the wall, dug under a fence and got through a second barrier.
The two still face the earlier pending charges, and more are possible after an alleged escape crime spree that stretched up to Kentucky. A nationwide alert was issued after the car stolen from Googe was found there. The men allegedly also stole a vehicle in Tennessee before returning to Florida.
Investigators found Brown and Fletcher after getting a tip the men were back in town