Series of mistakes helped ex-cop escape

A string of mishaps — including uncertainty about whom to call, voice mail messages left unanswered for hours and previous false alarms — combined to help double-murder suspect Derrick Yancey remove his ankle monitor and escape house arrest, according to a report issued Wednesday.

Yancey, a 49-year-old former DeKalb County Sheriff’s deputy accused of killing his wife and a day laborer, escaped from his mother’s Jonesboro home in the pre-dawn hours Saturday.

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Derrick Yancey

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More than fours hours passed from the time an alarm beeped from Yancey’s ankle monitor at 5:41 a.m. Saturday to the time authorities made their first attempts to determine Yancey’s whereabouts, according to the statement from Chief Magistrate Judge Winston Bethel, who oversees DeKalb’s Pre-Trial Services.

A phone message from the private monitoring firm to the company overseeing Yancey’s home arrest was not picked up until three hours later. Another hour passed before that company notified Pre-Trial Services, and it took 10 hours for court officials to notify the Sheriff’s Office that Yancey had fled.

The people responsible for monitoring Yancey never reached him by phone, according to a timeline released with the report. Yet the requirements of Yancey’s release on bond in August called for the judge to be notified “immediately” of a problem, so a bench warrant could be issued for his arrest.

Still, at 10:38 a.m. Saturday, one court monitor noted in the timeline, “I advised her to write this up as a violation and to send me a report on Monday.”

A DeKalb Superior Court judge, who revoked Yancey’s bond on Monday, blasted Pre-Trial Services for “a comedy of errors” that helped him escape.

Bethel, who has been out of town since Yancey’s escape, agreed that protocols were ignored in the confusing hours following the initial alert. He blamed a change in both the judge and pretrial services monitor in the case for part of the confusion.

To fix the problems, all Pre-Trial Service investigators have been given a full list of contact numbers for the sheriff’s office, judges and district attorney’s office, Bethel said Wednesday.

When he returns to town later this week, Bethel plans to meet with Judge Linda Warren Hunter, who ripped his department in the hearing on Monday.

He also plans to meet with the private monitoring firms, BI Inc of Colorado and Providence Community Corrections in Clarkston, to see why there was a four-hour delay between the alert and when those workers began trying to track down Yancey.

“It is supposed to be a 24-hour operation with no delays. We want an immediate alert when a device is tampered with,” said Bethel.

“If they cannot assure us they can do that, we will switch companies. This cannot happen again,” he added.

Bethel said there had been “several” false alarms since they began monitoring Yancey in August. Pre-Trial Services followed up on those alerts, Bethel said, which were caused by faulty batteries and power outages.

The Sheriff’s Office Fugitive Unit was following up on leads on Yancey Wednesday, without luck, said spokeswoman Mikki Jones. On Tuesday, officials put his photo and information up on “America’s Most Wanted,” in a bid to capture a man they describe as armed and dangerous.

Yancey was indicted in August for killing his wife Linda, 44, and Guatemalan day laborer, 20-year-old Marcial Cax Puluc.

He had initially blamed Puluc for his wife’s slaying, saying he then shot the young man in self-defense. But authorities said that lab tests showed that Yancey had shot both victims.