Judge irate over ex-deputy’s escape

A judge on Monday revoked bond for a former DeKalb County sheriff’s deputy who fled house arrest over the weekend, blasting the county’s Pre-Trial Services for allowing the double-murder suspect to escape.

Derrick Yancey, 49, remained at large Monday evening, seven months after he was indicted for the June shooting death of his wife Linda, 44, and a day laborer, Marcial Cax Puluc, 20.

Superior Court Judge Linda Warren Hunter noted that Yancey got almost a 12-hour head start before the sheriff’s office was notified that his ankle bracelet had been tampered with on Saturday. Yancey had been free since posting a $150,000 surety bond in August, with the condition he remain under house arrest at his mother’s Jonesboro home.

But court testimony Monday showed that although the private monitoring firm BI Inc. of Colorado received an alert on the bracelet at 5:41 a.m., the sheriff’s office was not notified until hours later, at 3:41 p.m.

According to testimony, workers with the supervising firm Providence Community Corrections in Clarkston spent several hours trying to reach Yancey at his mother’s home. They never got Yancey on the phone and people who answered the phone gave conflicting answers about his whereabouts.

Only when the workers called Chief Magistrate Judge Winston Bethel — whose office oversees the court’s pre-trial services - were prosecutors and the sheriff’s office notified, according to testimony.

“This was a comedy of errors,” Hunter said, adding that Pre-Trial Services should have had a plan for whom to notify if the bracelet was tampered with.

No one answered calls at Providence’s Clarkston offices on Monday. Bethel, who was out of town, said late Monday that he was still going through the timeline to determine what protocols were in place and where the breakdown occurred. He returns to work on Thursday, and expects to have a report to Hunter by week’s end.

“It’s tragic that he was able to slip away like that,” Bethel said. “I can’t believe it took so long. That is what most concerns me at this point.”

Hunter’s action Monday ensured that Yancey will not be eligible for bond again. But Linda Yancey’s family and prosecutors objected to Yancey being released on bond last summer.

Yancey initially tried to blame Puluc, a Guatemalan day laborer, as his wife’s murderer, saying he then shot the young man in self defense. But authorities said lab tests showed that Derrick Yancey shot both victims.

Beatriz Illescas Putzeys, consul general of Guatemala in Atlanta, said Yancey should not have been granted bail.

“When I heard that the judge had let him go on bail I couldn’t believe it, because it was a case with two murders,” Illescas Putzeys said Monday.

Although Yancey appears to have fled on foot, the Sheriff’s Office has broadened its search for him nationally, said spokeswoman Mikki Jones. Yancey has been listed as armed and dangerous in those reports.

“We don’t have any solid leads at this point, but we are looking everywhere for him,” Jones said.

Yancey’s attorney, Keith Adams, said he had not had any contact with his client since he disappeared.

Adams did, however, speak to Yancey’s parents, who are concerned about the manhunt turning violent because he is described as a threat.

“They are encouraging him, as am I, to turn himself in and deal with this appropriately, which is in court,” Adams said.

— Staff writer Mary Lou Pickel contributed to this report.