Heavily armed teams of officers on Thursday continued to search for a murderer who walked out of the Kankakee County jail a day earlier after beating a correctional officer and stealing his uniform.
Kankakee County Sheriff Tim Bukowski said officials believe the felon, Kamron T. Taylor, 23, is getting help from someone and warned that anyone found to be aiding his escape would face criminal charges.
“We have to believe that someone is helping him, concealing him,” Bukowski said at a news conference late Thursday morning. “We will prosecute those people to the full extent of the law. We are able analyze phone activities, visitor records, and have been interviewing inmates. Someone had to help him — either met him and helped him to get out of the area, or is concealing him.”
The sheriff’s office released an image taken from a surveillance camera showing Taylor wearing the guard’s jacket, emblazoned with a badge. Teams from the Illinois State Police, the U.S. Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies were analyzing tips and other information to guide their search of the Kankakee area, as well as other locations in Illinois and other states, Bukowski said.
So far they have searched more than 47 locations, including private residences, looking for Taylor, he said.
Taylor, who was awaiting sentencing for the murder of Nelson Williams Jr., is believed to be armed with a handgun and is very dangerous, Bukowski said.
“We know he has a weapon and will not hesitate to use it,” the sheriff said. He would not say whether Taylor could be armed with the gun that belonged to the guard who was assaulted.
Investigators said Taylor escaped early Wednesday from his two-person cell at the Jerome Combs Detention Center after the last security check and lay in wait.
“We have pretty good idea how he got out (of his cell),” Bukowski said Thursday. “We just don’t want to talk about it right now.”
When the 38-year-old correctional officer, a 10-year employee who had been at work since 11 p.m. the previous night, entered the pod to conduct a routine check, Taylor attacked from the side, choked him and hit him on the head, officials said.
The prisoner stripped the stricken officer of his uniform, which he then donned to fool the jail employees monitoring the three doors that stood between him and freedom. Bukowski said Taylor and his victim are both African-American and have similar builds.
Taylor walked out of the jail at 3:12 a.m. Wednesday, found the officer’s car using a fob on the set of keys he’d stolen and drove away, authorities said. He abandoned the car in the 12000 block of South Lincoln Avenue about 8:30 a.m. Investigators were questioning Taylor’s relatives and associates in the area, as well as inmates in the pod who were awakened by the struggle. They were also reviewing video related to Taylor’s escape.
Bukowski said he visited the officer who was attacked on Thursday and said his condition is improving, but he would not provide any further details at the request of the officer’s family.
Bukowski said his staff made mistakes that enabled Taylor’s escape, but he did not specify what those mistakes were or who made them. However, he said chronic short-staffing was a contributing factor to the successful escape and that inmates have noticed fatigue among the staff.
“Certainly the inmates became aware that our staff has been forced to work overtime,” the sheriff said. “They get tired and make mistakes.”
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In the past, jail officials deployed two correctional officers to check on a pod, but staff reductions of 15 to 20 percent have forced the jail to perform checks with just one officer.
Bukowski, who once believed the jail could be managed adequately at current staffing levels, said he now would like to see more officers hired to prevent incidents like this.
Taylor awaits sentencing for the June 2013 murder of Williams during a botched armed robbery.
On Thursday the victim’s father, Nelson Williams Sr., 48, said his family was concerned about Taylor’s escape and recalled threats Taylor made when he was convicted in February.
“We’re laying low, trying to be cautious. We’re careful about who’s knocking on our doors,” Williams said.
“When he disrupted the courtroom (after the guilty verdict) he was saying something like, ‘I’m gonna get all of you’ or something, But we figured, ‘How’s he gonna do that? He’s gonna be gone for good.’ But he proved us wrong.”
Williams said he hopes Taylor will not harm himself or someone else and that he thinks it won’t take long for police to recapture him. He said he hopes authorities will not have to use deadly force against the fugitive.
“Do not kill him, because I want him to go to prison and suffer,” he said.
On Wednesday, the sheriff’s office issued an alert for 15-year-old girl they believed may have been with Taylor, but the girl was found safe in the afternoon. She was interviewed by investigators who concluded she had not been with Taylor and had nothing to do with his escape, Bukowski said.
Taylor is 5 feet 9 inches tall and about 170 pounds, according to authorities. Bukowski said there is a $5,000 reward for information leading to Taylor’s capture. Anyone with information should call 911 or 815-933-3324.
Sullivan is a freelance reporter. The Associated Press and Tribune reporter Alex Chachkevitch contributed.