2 charged in plot to escape police custody
A Butler man and his girlfriend are facing felony escape charges after police said the girlfriend agreed to help him escape police custody while he was being taken to a preliminary hearing to face charges alleging he discussed killing a woman he and another man are accused of restraining and robbing in her home.
Damean M. Felmlee, 29, was charged Wednesday with a felony escape charge and his girlfriend, Heidi M. Boots, 25, is facing felony counts of escape and conspiracy to commit escape filed by state police following Felmlee’s alleged brief escape on Aug. 19.
Felmlee told Boots he planned to escape while he was being taken from the Butler County Prison to the hearing at District Judge William Fullerton’s former office on nearby West Cunningham Street in Butler, and Boots agreed to wait for him and pick him up at a boat shop on Route 38 in Summit Township, according to recordings of phone conversations between Felmlee and Boots while Felmlee was being held in the Clarion County Jail on an unrelated matter between Aug. 12 and 16. A transcript of those conversations is included in the affidavit police filed with the complaint.
He told her the escape would make them famous, according to the affidavit.
“You realize this is going to be all over. Like, I’m going to be famous. It’s been planned for 11 days now. I have help. The only thing I don’t have is a pickup. Someone to pick me up,” Felmlee told Boots on Aug. 12, according to the affidavit.
“All right well, hopefully I can get down there,” Boots responded.
On Aug. 16, Felmlee said: “Pay attention to Facebook and the news. I’m going to make you famous.”
“OK,” Boots responded.
“You know they’re going to come at you hard,” Felmlee said.
“I know,” Boots responded, according to the affidavit.
On Aug. 19, a trooper picked up Felmlee at the Butler County Prison, placed him in a transport belt with his hands double locked and checked for tightness in the front of the belt.
The trooper said he had a full grip on the belt and proceeded to walk Felmlee next door to Fullerton’s office, but Felmlee fled as they approached the front door, according to the affidavit. The trooper and the brother of the robbery victim chased him.
Felmlee ran around the right side of the building, through parking lots behind the office, crossed West Diamond Street, behind LIFE Butler County and jumped a fence around a yard where the trooper and the robbery victim’s brother caught him and regained custody, according to the affidavit.
He was taken to the hearing where he was held for court on a felony charge of criminal solicitation to commit criminal homicide and a misdemeanor charge of criminal solicitation to commit retaliation against a witness or victim, and his bond was increased from $25,000 to $250,000. Those charges are pending in Common Pleas Court.
In that case, state police allege Felmlee called Boots from the Clarion County Jail using another inmate’s phone account and indicated he could beat the robbery charges if the victim was dead. Boots was not charged in that case.
“I can beat this case here if she goes away, if you get my drift. How gangsta are you baby?” Felmlee said in a June 9 call to Boots, according to an affidavit.
In a June 12 phone call, he told Boots, “If that bitch dies, we won’t go to court,” according to the affidavit.
Felmlee was in jail after he was arrested on robbery, theft and false imprisonment charges on May 26 in Clarion County, according to an affidavit.
Those charges stem from a May 6 robbery of a Brady Township woman in her home. Police charged Felmlee and Herbert D. Zellefrow Jr., 52, of Rimersburg, with the robbery. They waived their preliminary hearings. Felmlee’s bond is $500,000 and Zellefrow’s bond is $1 million in the case. Both are facing 24 felony and misdemeanor charges including burglary, theft, false imprisonment and conspiracy.
The victim told police that two men came to her home on May 5 under the pretense of circulating a gun rights petition, which she declined to sign. The two men returned later and asked to use her phone to call a tow truck for their vehicle, which they said had broken down, but the phone number they called was Felmlee’s, according to the affidavit.
Someone using Felmlee’s phone number then called the woman’s home claiming to be a tow-truck driver and said he was trying to reach two men about a disabled vehicle. On May 6 at 9:30 a.m., the woman received another call from the same number from a man who spoke as if he was one of the men who visited her the day before, according to the affidavit.
At 10:30 a.m., two men entered the woman’s home carrying long guns, took her to her bedroom, ordered her to open a safe and demanded $40,000. She gave them some money and they proceeded to take cordless phones, jewelry, firearms and prescription medication, according to the affidavit, and the men used zip ties to restrain her hands behind her back then left the home.
The ensuing investigation led police to Felmlee and Zellefrow. Felmlee was arrested May 26 after he fled from a home in Farmington Township in Clarion County, police said.
