Man walks out of Utah jail, then drives off in deputy’s car that was warming up, police say

NEPHI, Utah (KSL.com) — An inmate who was just released from the Juab County Jail after being arrested and accused of burglarizing a car was arrested again Tuesday after police say he drove away from the jail in a deputy’s vehicle.

About 5 a.m. Tuesday, a detective from the Juab County Sheriff’s Office went outside the office to start his unmarked patrol truck and let it warm up while he finished working on a case inside the building. The deputy thought he had used his key fob to lock the door, but it was later determined “there was a mechanical failure with the driver door, in which the driver door did not lock, even after the detective locked it with his key fob,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

Just minutes later, after the deputy went back inside, Joel Phillip Cameron, 35, walked outside after being released from jail, and spotted the Ford F-350 with the engine running.

“The inmate approached the running vehicle, opened the door and got in. He got back out of the vehicle, and ultimately got back in the vehicle and drove away,” according to the sheriff’s office.

The truck had two firearms inside, according to a police booking affidavit.

Police put out an attempt-to-locate alert to other agencies and the stolen truck was spotted by the Utah Highway Patrol on I-15 in Millard County. The truck was headed north at that time, back toward Nephi.

Because of “the severity of the circumstances,” police immediately set up tire spikes to stop the vehicle rather than attempting to pull the truck over and risk getting into a chase, the sheriff’s office said.

The tires were successfully spiked and Cameron was arrested without incident. He was rebooked into the Juab County Jail and charged on Wednesday in 4th District Court with three counts of theft, a second-degree felony.

Cameron was arrested and booked into the jail the first time on Monday. He was charged Tuesday in 4th District Court with car burglary and theft, class A misdemeanors. He was then able to post bail.

In that case, Cameron entered another person’s Toyota Tacoma outside a business in Levan, according to a police affidavit. Cameron initially claimed to police that he was “playing a game with some colleagues” and was supposed to get into a vehicle similar to the Tacoma, but picked the wrong car. Police were not able to verify that story. Police noted that Cameron is originally from Washington and appeared to be by himself.