The five-day seek for an escaped killer from an Ohio jail resulted in Henderson, Kentucky, on Sunday, when officers pulled what they consider to be his physique from the Ohio River.
Authorities had been trying to find 50-year-old Bradley Gillespie, who reportedly escaped from the Allen/Oakwood Correctional Establishment in Lima, Ohio, on Tuesday together with inmate James Marion Lee.
A boater known as emergency dispatchers round 1:30 p.m. Sunday to report a physique within the river, and Henderson Police Chief Sean McKinney stated investigators discovered the corpse within the water close to Deaconess Henderson Hospital.
McKinney stated that whereas an post-mortem this week will yield extra info, the state of the physique indicated Gillespie had been within the water for “4 or 5 days.”
“It’s preliminary, however all the things we’ve seen and carried out would point out that is Mr. Gillespie we’ve discovered,” McKinney stated.
Gillespie and Lee had made their technique to Henderson by Wednesday morning in a stolen Mercury Capri, based on police data. After a car chase − and a foot chase − native legislation enforcement captured Lee, 47, however Gillespie escaped.
It was the beginning of a number of days of looking out by native, county and state police and U.S. Marshals, together with some door-to-door patrols looking for Gillespie on the north aspect of Henderson.
Early Wednesday morning, an HPD officer noticed the stolen Mercury Capri because it drove “south on U.S. 41 simply previous the bridge,” based on an affidavit.
A nationwide database flagged the car as being occupied by two escaped inmates from Ohio.
The officer who first noticed the stolen Capri alerted the Henderson County Sheriff’s Workplace and metropolis police to the car’s location and course of journey. Legislation enforcement then positioned automobiles additional south alongside U.S. 41.
“These items had been ready to make contact with the car,” the affidavit states. “Officers tried to make a car cease on the Capri within the space of Audubon Chrysler,” however Lee − who officers consider to have been the motive force − did not cease.
Lee and Gillespie fled south on U.S. 41 as police pursued them. In line with the affidavit, the escaped inmates ultimately made their technique to North Elm Avenue.
“The car turned onto Camaro Drive then to Camaro Court docket, the place it crashed by a fence and right into a yard of a residence,” the affidavit states.
Sheriff’s deputies and metropolis police then started chasing each Lee and Gillespie on foot.
“They had been in a position to cease James Lee within the space of Camaro Court docket,” Lee’s arrest quotation states. However Gillespie evaded seize. Police data make no point out of how Gillespie bought away, aside from to state, “each topics jumped over a fence as they had been fleeing on foot.”
Lee was arrested at 3:19 a.m. and booked into the Henderson County Detention Middle, police stated. Gillespie would not be seen by police once more till they discovered his physique on Sunday. McKinney confirmed that officers based mostly figuring out the physique on comparisons with data of Gillespie’s tattoos.
The spot the place the physique was pulled from the river “was very near the final identified whereabouts of Mr. Gillespie,” McKinney stated.
In 2016, a Paulding County, Ohio, jury convicted Gillespie of murdering Hannah Fischer and Frank Tracy, Jr. A decide sentenced him to serve two consecutive 15-year-to-life sentences.
This can be a growing story and shall be up to date.
