Benton County inmate convicted of escaping from courthouse

A jury took 13 minutes Monday to convict a Benton County inmate of running from corrections officers after a court hearing.

Gerald A. Hyde II, 24, represented himself on the second-degree escape charge in Benton County Superior Court.

He argued that he did not escape from a detention facility since he ran from the courthouse, which is connected to the jail.

However, Hyde was in custody and being escorted out of the courtroom when he took off through an interior hallway and eventually ran out the front door while barefoot and wearing jail-issued pants.

The escape was caught on surveillance video, said Deputy Prosecutor Megan Whitmire.

Hyde was tracked down a couple of hours later at a friend’s apartment two miles away. He initially was locked up for possessing methamphetamine, which has since been dismissed.

After Monday’s guilty verdict, Judge Vic VanderSchoor sentenced him to two years and two months in prison.

In 2011, Hyde was convicted of second-degree escape for similar circumstances. He had been found in contempt during a hearing and told by the judge to sit in the jury box until officers could take him to jail.

Hyde instead left the courtroom and, when caught, said “he didn’t know what he had been doing because he had been slamming dope for a couple of weeks,” Whitmire said.

His criminal history also includes burglary, assault, malicious mischief, thefts of firearms and drug possessions.

This story was originally published March 7, 2016 at 6:49 PM with the headline "Benton County inmate convicted of escaping from courthouse."