The deputy on duty when two convicted murders escaped Sunday from an eastern Utah jail has resigned, according to Daggett County Sheriff Rick Ellsworth.
In a statement issued Friday morning, Ellsworth confirmed the resignation, but declined to name the deputy. The sheriff also said that through dozens of inmate interviews investigators have determined that Danny Martin Gallegos and Juan Carlos Diaz-Arevalo had been carefully planning their escape, "probably for weeks."
"We've identified the circumstances in the situation that led to the escape and corrected them," Ellsworth said. "I don't want to describe them publicly for security reasons, obviously."
Gallegos, 49, and Diaz-Arevalo, 26, were in an enclosed exercise yard at the Daggett County Jail about 2 p.m. Sunday when they slipped out as a group county inmates were entering into a garden area adjoining the exercise yard, the sheriff said.
The pair then climbed a 12-foot-high wire fence topped with razor wire and got onto the roof. They apparently jumped off the roof's west side, the sheriff said.
Gallegos and Diaz-Arevalo are state inmates who had been housed in the Daggett County Jail under a contract that generates $1.3 million annually for the county. An audit of policies and procedures at the 20 county jails were state inmates are housed has been promised by state Corrections officials in light of the escape.
Both escapees were serving time on murder charges. Gallegos wasn't due to appear before the state Board of Pardons and Parole until 2025. Diaz-Arevalo's next parole hearing was scheduled for 2030.
Searchers thought they had an idea of where the men were on Wednesday after a tip put them at a rest area Tuesday night about 34 miles north of Vernal. A intense manhunt began around the rest area, but was scrapped Thursday when the man who reported the sighting admitted to investigators that he had lied.
The 27-year-old Vernal man is now expected to face criminal charges and could be ordered to pay restitution for the cost of Wednesday's search efforts.
A second tip, received Thursday morning, put Gallegos and Diaz-Arevalo in a home in Evanston, Wyo. That tip was investigated by Wyoming and Utah authorities, who learned it was "a dead end," Ellsworth said.
"The Evanston Police Department responded swiftly and efficiently to this report," the sheriff said. "When the report came in to their office, they placed the home under surveillance immediately and called us. A team of Utah Department of Corrections officers and United States Marshals responded, but it proved to be a false lead."
A total of $20,000 has been posted for information leading to the capture of Gallegos and Diaz-Arevalo. Anyone with information about the escapees should not confront them, but should call the Daggett County Sheriff's Office at (435) 784-3255, Central Dispatch at (435) 789-4222, or the U.S. Marshal's Service at (801) 524-5693.
E-mail: geoff@ubstandard.com