FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — After nearly a week on the lam, a murder suspect who slipped from his shackles and bolted from a crowded South Florida courtroom in a meticulous escape plot involving seven accomplices was captured at a nondescript motel, authorities said Thursday.
The seven people who investigators say assisted 21-year-old Dayonte Resiles include a pregnant teenager who staged secretive three-way jailhouse phone calls to plan the caper and an older cousin who provided Resiles with a wig and colored contact lenses to use as a disguise. All seven were arrested on escape and other charges.
Resiles, who is accused of killing a woman whose family founded the Halliburton oil services company, was ordered held without bond during a court appearance Thursday.
Broward County Judge Michael Davis also ordered Resiles jailed in isolation, including no contact with other inmates and no outside communication except with attorneys.
“He’s proven himself very resourceful,” Davis said. “I can’t have this gentleman interacting with any other inmates.”
After Resiles briefly objected that the communications restrictions were “unconstitutional and unfair” because his family couldn’t monitor his mental condition, the judge ordered a mental health evaluation as well.
Resiles was captured without incident late Wednesday at a Days Inn in West Palm Beach, about an hour’s drive north of the Fort Lauderdale courthouse from which he escaped last Friday.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters that Resiles didn’t resist when a SWAT team ordered him to come out of the first-floor motel room just before midnight.
“He came out of the room. He surrendered without incident” and lay on the ground, Israel said. “He allowed us to handcuff him. No force was necessary.”
The drama first unfolded last Friday morning on the fourth floor of the downtown Broward Courthouse, where Resiles was supposed to attend a hearing on whether he will face the death penalty for the 2014 slaying of Jill Halliburton Su.
Su, 59, was bound at the hands and feet and stabbed multiple times in her Davie, Florida, home during what police say was a burglary attempt. She was a grand-niece of the Halliburton Co. founder.
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less