Straight Out of Shawshank! Oklahoma Murderer Escaped Jail from the 12th Floor Using Sheets!
Two inmates escaped the Oklahoma County Detention Center yesterday after apparently crafting a long rope from bedsheets!
Pablo Robledo, 34, and Jose Hernandez, 33, were discovered to be missing from Hernandez's cell during a routine check. Hernandez was being held on charges of rape, indecent exposure, and burglary. Robledo was incarcerated on a number of charges, including first-degree murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and domestic abuse. Local reports indicated that Robledo is accused of fatally shooting a man in March 2019. He was arrested in connection with the shooting in June 2019.
The inmates were able to escape about 5:20 a.m. by cutting the welds of a metal grate and then breaking through the glass blocks in their cell. The two managed to obtain enough bedsheets to cut and tie them together making a sturdy rope to rappel from the 12th story window. They anchored the rope to the leg of a metal desk in their cell.
After climbing from his cell, Robledo scaled a wall to get out of a secure area at the rear of the jail. "A diagram of the facility was found drawn on a piece of paper with the specific areas that the inmates escaped from drawn in detail," the investigator wrote. On the way down Hernandez broke his ankle, apparently he decided to jump from about the 4th floor, and the pair went their separate ways.
Hernandez (pictured left) was captured first due to his injury. He was spotted by Oklahoma City police officers Friday morning laying in the grass after making his way just outside the jail's secure perimeter, an investigator reported.
Robledo was captured hours later on foot in southwest Oklahoma City. Investigators believe he was going to see his dad and maybe flee the country. U.S. Marshal Johnny Kuhlman told reporters that Robledo "was walking down the street in a front yard and confronted and arrested by members of the task force."
Robledo was wearing jeans, a shirt and cowboy boots at the time of his capture. Sheriff deputies walked him back into the jail. "I'm proud of the work accomplished today," Sheriff P.D. Taylor said of the arrest.
Of course their escape has a few within the corrections system pointing at each other over who's at fault. The escape renewed the animosity between County Commissioner Kevin Calvey and the sheriff.
Calvey again blamed the sheriff for problems at the jail.
"Sheriff Taylor had the responsibility to maintain the jail, including the windows through which the inmates escaped, and Taylor failed," the commissioner said. "The legacy of Taylor's mismanagement is more fully being exposed now, and the trust management is fixing the problems as they come to light."
In response, the sheriff said, "These escapees had to cut through ... grates, and no one at the jail noticed, so how is that my fault? They hoarded bedsheets for their escape, and were free for more than an hour and Jail Trust administration didn’t even know until outside law enforcement notified them, that’s not my fault. Enough is enough."
Either way, the building needed maintenance and it didn't happen. We bet it does now!
This is one instance where quick actions managed to get the criminals back in jail where they belong. We've got a question though, how many of you think that they had to have had a little extra help? Were they just able to get all of the sheets from a laundry connect or did they steal them from other inmates? Who had been all over the jail in order to make a detailed map?