A Vermont inmate who escaped early Friday morning from the St. Johnsbury prison work camp got out through a small window, according to corrections officials.
He then used a blanket and mattress he took with him to protect himself as he scaled a fence and the razor-wire on top of it.
Shannon Edwards, 35, has been on the run since, with authorities looking for clues on where he might be. A police dog called to the scene shortly after the escape was unable to locate him.
“Initially, he was on foot and then we don’t have any information after that,” Lt. Hugh O’Donnell, commander of the state police barracks in St. Johnsbury, told reporters during a briefing late Friday morning. “They attempted to track and went a little ways and then the trail ended.”
A $200,000 warrant has been issued for Edwards’ arrest on a charge of escape.
Edwards is considered a potential harm to others and public safety, according to police.
“We just know he’s made verbal threats to people he’s known,” O’Donnell said, adding that anyone on the run from police can become desperate and is a potential threat.
Detectives, he added, are reaching out to Edwards’ family members and other people he had known.
“We are looking for a piece of the puzzle,” O’Donnell said.
According to court filings, Edwards was serving a sentence of 30 months to eight years on several charges including repeated burglary counts and resisting arrest. His minimum release date was March 2022.
Al Cormier, Vermont Department of Corrections facilities executive, said Friday afternoon that the work camp Edwards escaped from at the Northeast Correctional Complex in St. Johnsbury houses minimum security inmates.
Those prisoners go out in the community during the day and work on community projects, such as mowing lawns or painting buildings, Cormier said.
The inmates are housed in a steel “dormitory-style” building, with the bunk beds in an open area of the large units, according to Cormier. “It’s not your normal prison setting,” he added.
At the time of the escape, he said, the unit where Edwards was housed, which can hold up to 50 prisoners, had 28 inmates.
Corrections staff conduct half hour checks of beds through the night, and Edwards was last seen at 12:30 a.m. Friday, Cormier said. By the 1 a.m. check, he added, Edwards was gone, having escaped out the window not far from his bunk.
The corrections officer did see blankets in Edwards’ bunk that had been propped up, and both the bathroom and dayroom were searched with no sign of him, according to an affidavit for the arrest warrant by Norah Quinn, Northeast Correctional Complex superintendent.
State police responded to the scene about 1:15 a.m. Friday, along with other law enforcement agencies.
“Based on our camera system,” Quinn wrote in the affidavit, “it appears Edwards took a mattress and blanket, climbed out a window in (the) South Unit, scaled the fence throwing a blanket over the razor wire and escaped.”
Cormier described the window Edwards escaped from as about 1 foot by 3 foot, and the fence he went over as being about 14 feet high with the razor wire on top.
The work camp as well as the nearby prison were put on lockdown, and corrections staff and state police Friday were interviewing the 27 remaining inmates in the unit Edwards escaped from.
Asked if authorities believe that someone may have helped Edwards in the escape, Cormier replied, “It’s too early to tell.”
Cormier did say that Edwards had ties to both the Morrisville and Waterbury areas.
Edwards is described by police as a white man, 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing 185 pounds. He has hazel eyes and brown hair. According to police, Edwards was last known to be wearing a white long-sleeved T-shirt, dark gray sweatpants, and white sneakers.
O’Donnell ended his press briefing Friday by offering advice to the public.
“Be vigilant, maybe a little more aware of your surroundings,” he said. “If you see somebody who matches his description, stay away from him, give us a call.”
Washington County State’s Attorney Rory Thibault said Friday that Edwards had been a participant at one point in treatment court, but a burlary in Plainfield led to his removal from that program.
More recently, in 2018, Thibault said, Edwards was charged in connection with residential burglaries in Barre City as well as a count of resisting arrest.
He was sentenced in May of this year to 30 months to eight years in prison, consecutive to a sentence he had already been serving on other charges, including additional burglary counts.
“He’s been primarily a property crime guy,” the prosecutor said.
“Unfortunately,” Thibault said, “we’ve had a long history with Mr. Edwards, and multiple attempts at rehabilitation have not worked well.”
Anyone with information about Edwards’ whereabouts is asked to call the State Police St. Johnsbury barracks at 802-748-3111.
