| 118th Year, 44th Issue | Thursday, June 14, 2007 | Sparta, North Carolina |
Two men awaiting trial in Alleghany County overpowered a jailer, took his keys and escaped from custody Sunday night at around 10 p.m.
The escapees, who were recaptured within a period of about five hours, were Enrique Hernandez Soto, 43, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Jeremy Lee Ebersole, 37, of Wilkesboro.
Soto is awaiting trial for the murder of 18-year-old Amy Devon Reese last July at a residence on Grandridge Road. He is accused with stabbing Ms. Reese multiple times after what may have started as a domestic dispute. Soto was captured by Wythe County Sheriff's Office deputies at a bus station last year the day following the murder.
Ebersole is awaiting trial for numerous counts of breaking and entering and larceny. He is a resident of Wilkes County and is charged with breaking and entering in several counties, including incidents at Whitehead Store and Mabe's Grocery in Alleghany County.
Capt. Steve Cothren of the Alleghany County Jail said Tuesday that the two men were both recaptured in Sparta. Ebersole was caught near the jail about two hours after the escape, while Soto was captured at a home in town around 3 a.m.
Cothren declined to give more specific information about the areas where the men were captured. Both men were recaptured without incident and neither man resisted law enforcement officers, Cothren said.
Ebersole was located by Deputy Craig Williams, while Capt. Carlton Edwards took Soto into custody as part of a larger effort that involved numerous deputies.
The jail escape lead to the calling in of all Sheriff's Office deputies and jailers, deputies from neighboring Ashe County, the Sparta Police Department, N.C. Highway Patrol and a bloodhound from Iredell County.
Both Ebersole and Soto are charged with misdemeanor escape of a local jail and assault on a government official or employee. Both men were given additional bond amounts of $10,000 each on the two counts. The charge would have been a felony had the men been convicted of the charges for which they are in jail. However, since they are awaiting trial on the charges, the escape was charged as a misdemeanor. According to Cothren, the men were in a common area of the jail where inmates typically spend the majority of their time. As medications were being dispensed by a jailer, the men gained access to the control room, where they threw jailer Bill Ward, a 19-year veteran, to the ground, struck him with a ring of keys and sprayed him with pepper spray before fleeing through the back door to the jail, utilizing the keys to open the doors.
The two men then left the enclosed back jail yard by scaling a fence topped with razor wire and jumping down to Grayson Street and fleeing on foot.
Ebersole received cuts to his left arm and right leg, both of which
required stitches. Soto was not injured in the escape.
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