Who are the suspects? Men at center of Boise hospital ambush had long criminal records
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Sally Krutzig, Idaho Statesman
The Idaho prisoner who escaped from custody after a Boise hospital ambush and the man suspected of helping him flee, both of whom are now being investigated in connection with two homicides, have long histories of criminal activity dating back more than a decade.
Authorities said Idaho prisoner Skylar Meade, 31, escaped custody after Nicholas Umphenour, 28, ambushed Department of Correction officers at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, where Meade was receiving treatment for self-inflicted injuries. Umphenour shot two of the officers, while a third was mistakenly shot by police, according to Boise police.
The two men were on the lam for more than 24 hours before they were found and arrested in the Twin Falls area, according to state police. Police said they are now linked to two North Idaho homicides — one in Nez Perce County and another in Clearwater County — that happened in that window.
Court records showed Meade and Umphenour have both spent time in Idaho prison for various crimes. Both are members of the Aryan Knights, a white supremacist prison gang, according to police.
Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt said they were intermittently housed together from December 2020 to January 2024, when Umphenour was released, and had mutual acquaintances outside of prison.
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MEADE PREVIOUSLY SHOT AT LAW ENFORCEMENT
At the time of his escape, Meade was serving time for an officer assault, drug possession and unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, according to court records. Those charges stem from a November 2016 incident, in which Twin Falls Sheriff’s Sgt. Rick Beem attempted to pull over Meade’s vehicle for a traffic stop, court records showed.
Meade, who had pending misdemeanor drug charges at the time, sped away and tried to elude Beem while driving through Filer, according to the affidavit. Beem said Meade then took out a gun and shot in his direction three times while driving.
Beem apprehended Meade when his truck spun off the road and into a field. Beem and other arriving officers found at least 0.2 grams of methamphetamine in Meade’s pocket, according to the affidavit.
A judge sentenced Meade to 20 years with 10 years fixed for those crimes. Tewalt said Meade was housed in administrative segregation, more commonly known as solitary confinement, before his escape.
“It’s a form of restrictive housing that really is reserved for those people in our custody who have proven they can’t be housed without being a danger to themselves, staff or other people in our custody,” Tewalt said at a news conference.
Meade was previously sentenced to five years in prison with three years fixed for a 2010 felony theft charge, according to court records.
UMPHENOUR HAD HUNTING, BURGLARY CHARGES
Records showed Umphenour served three separate sentences in prison as an adult.
In August 2014, he was arrested for unlawfully hunting and taking multiple big game animals. He was initially sentenced to serve time from November 2014 to June 2016, according to the Idaho Department of Correction website. Court records showed that he was released on supervised probation for part of that sentence.
In March 2016, while on probation, he was arrested and later found guilty of felony burglary. A judge added two years to his sentence for the probation violation and burglary. He was released in March 2018.
But less than a year later, in December 2018, Umphenour, who was living in Orofino, was charged and later found guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm and grand theft in Clearwater County. He was charged with stealing a truck and other tools from a cedar mill in Weippe. Police said they found the truck burned, according to police reports.
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Court records showed Umphenour began his sentence for those crimes in June 2019 and was released on Jan. 17.
In January 2019, Umphenour was charged with several serious crimes for an incident in Clearwater County, but they were later dropped. Those charges included aggravated assault, battery, resisting or obstructing an officer, threatening an official, disturbing the peace and contempt of court.
Police said in written reports that Umphenour threatened a woman with a knife, hit a man’s face with his hand, ran away from a law enforcement officer and later threatened that officer to “influence him to violate his known legal duty.”
A written report by Deputy Kyle Atha said he heard Umphenour pulled out a knife on a woman at an Orofino bar before leaving and walking to the nearby gas station. Atha said he went outside and saw Umphenour.
“I again gave the command, ‘Stop, police,’ ” Atha said, “to which the male replied, ‘Not today, piggy,’ as he ran by me.”
While continuing to look for Umphenour, Atha said, he came across a man whose face was cut and bloody and who identified himself as the uncle of Umphenour’s girlfriend. The man told Atha that Umphenour had come up from behind and hit him while he was at a bar. When the man turned around, Umphenour pulled a knife out and threatened to kill him before running away, according to the police report.
Law enforcement eventually apprehended Umphenour at an Orofino hotel, and Atha described Umphenour as “verbally combative” and eventually physically combative during the arrest.
Umphenour made comments that Atha perceived as threatening, including “your f—ing family is done” and “he would f— me up,” according to Atha’s report.
The judge dismissed the case after “the state advised the court it was not prepared to proceed,” according to court records. In his police report, Atha wrote that a “Miranda warning was never read to Umphenour because of his combative state.”
The Clearwater County Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment on the case’s dismissal.