WHCC escapees returned to Weston County

Alexis Barker
NLJ News Editor
 
Everything but Shadow, the dog taken by two Wyoming Honor Conservation Camp inmates who escaped on Sept. 22, and a few tools have been returned to Weston County, according to Mike Moore, Newcastle’s city engineer, and Mark Horan, Wyoming Department of Corrections public information officer. 
The Wyoming Department of Corrections reported that Jason Green and Robert Simpson had both been apprehended in Texas after their escape from the honor camp just north of Newcastle. The two individuals left the facility sometime between 8 p.m. and inmate count at 10 p.m., according to Warden Todd Martin, taking a dog who was part of the camp’s Project LOVED with them. 
The two men, Martin said, headed west on foot after leaving the facility. They then broke into the Newcastle City Shop, stole a truck and left for Laramie before heading to Texas. 
“Both escapees are back in Wyoming and currently being held at the Weston County Detention Center pending additional charges,” Horan said, noting that he is currently unaware of what those charges are but that Weston County Attorney Alex Berger is in charge of the case. 
Documentation from the Circuit Court of the Sixth Judicial District, Weston County, shows both Green and Simpson facing charges of escape: felony conviction, theft of $1,000 or more and burglary. The escape charge alone is punishable by up to 10 years of imprisonment. 
“The dog is still missing. At one point, it was thought that the inmates might have dropped the dog off at an animal shelter in Texas, but that lead hasn’t panned out,” Horan said. “The dog is microchipped, though, so we’re hoping someone will find him eventually.” 
As far as the stolen items go, Moore reported that the 2002 Ford F-150 extended cab was the main item stolen from the city shop. He noted that the truck had several tools in it and some of those were returned with the truck. 
“I have a list, and we ended up having to replace some of the tools,” said Greg Stumpff, the city’s public works supervisor. “There was about $1,800 in tools we replaced, and they took the headache rack off, so we had to build a new rack and replace the yellow light.” 
He noted that the truck has been put back into service with new tools. The stolen tools, according to Stumpff, included hand tools and a computer. 
“The computer was valued at about $4,000, and we didn’t get that back. They took that from inside the truck,” Moore said. 
Stumpff said that the city is unsure of what Green and Simpson did while in the city shop but that they spent enough time there to go through all the pickups, emptying the glove boxes. 
“They also made some coffee and went through the employee lockers,” Stumpff said. “The sheriff’s office found clothes in the extra garbage cans there, and the only clothes in the shop were the safety gear, and we had multiple of those. So if they took some of that, it would be difficult to tell.” 
Both Moore and Stumpff said that the city and Weston County Sheriff’s Department have never figured out how the inmates were able to enter the shop, although the suspicion is that they found the hide-away key. 
“They broke into one of the desks where we kept the keys, finding the truck keys. That is how they got out of the gate,” Stumpff said. “We found the keys in the truck when it was returned.”