Escapee still on lam after week

Sheriff seeks to widen search beyond Logan County

Shaun Higham
Shaun Higham

[UPDATE: Jail escapee Shaun Higham was captured Tuesday night. Click here for full details]

The Logan County sheriff is asking the U.S. Marshals Service and the Arkansas State Police for additional help in the search for a jail escapee who the sheriff suspects has left the Paris area.

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Sheriff Boyd Hicks said Tuesday that he's seeking help from state and federal agencies to scour other areas in Arkansas and surrounding states on the chance that Shaun Higham received assistance after he fled the county jail June 28 and is no longer in the Logan County.

Hicks said extensive searches of the area around Paris, which is about 40 miles east of Fort Smith, have not led to Higham's capture, and no reported sightings since the escape have been confirmed as being Higham.

"We've run out of leads at this point until we get another sighting," Hicks said Tuesday.

Higham, 45, and Zackary Coffer, 19, were being held on separate robbery charges when they escaped from the jail about 4 a.m. June 28. Hicks said Higham used a toothbrush to pick a lock on the cell door, and the two men fled out the front door of the jail while jailers served breakfast.

Coffer was captured about 9:30 p.m. that day about a half-mile from the jail. Higham hasn't been spotted since.

An update on the escape was posted Sunday evening on the sheriff's office Facebook page. It said Higham -- if he is still in the area -- might be heading west following an abandoned railroad bed that runs just behind the county jail in Paris.

Signs of a break-in have been reported at a camper on Arkansas 22 west of Paris, and the day after the camper break-in, someone was reported as being on property in Ratcliff farther west along the railroad bed.

Authorities received a report that evening farther west of a man wearing camouflage clothing and carrying a milk jug along the railroad bed behind a feed mill in Branch. Dogs were called in to assist in the search, but they could not pick up a scent, Hicks said.

A Charleston firefighter reported seeing a man running along the railroad bed Sunday between Branch and Charleston to the west. Again, search dogs were unable to pick up a scent.

The search so far has included several local, county and state law enforcement agencies and other officials. Helicopters from the state police and the Arkansas Air National Guard have conducted aerial searches, and dog teams from the Arkansas Department of Correction and from Johnson County have been called in to help.

The sheriff's office cautions anyone who lives along the old railroad bed to be alert and to report any suspicious people they see in the area.

The Facebook post said Higham is considered dangerous, but there is no information that he is armed.

Higham had been in the county jail since June 12, 2015, when he and James Brandon, 31, were arrested in the robbery at gunpoint of the Subiaco Federal Credit Union. Court records show that Higham's trial is scheduled for July 22 in Logan County Circuit Court in Paris.

On the same day as the robbery, Higham and Brandon were arrested at a tavern in Scranton. Deputies reported finding $1,673 in the waste basket in the men's restroom at the tavern.

A mental evaluation completed by Arkansas State Hospital psychologist Paul Deyoub said Higham had four ex-wives, seven children, and a wife who moved out of their Paris apartment without his knowledge two days before his arrest.

The report stated that he owed child support for children living in Scott and Sebastian counties. The report said he had relatives who lived at times in Arizona and California, but it was unclear if they were still there.

Coffer appeared Friday before Circuit Judge Jerry Don Ramey and pleaded guilty to one count of attempted aggravated robbery, reduced from aggravated robbery.

The complaint against him involved a crime on April 10, 2015, at the ZA Food Mart in Magazine.

"He went into the store with a weapon and demanded money," his attorney Ernie Witt told Ramey during the plea hearing Friday. "When the cashier rebuffed him, he fled."

Coffer jumped into a car that authorities say was driven by Joseph Ramsey, 46, who has been charged with aggravated robbery and hindering apprehension or prosecution. Ramsey is scheduled for trial July 22 in Circuit Court in Booneville.

According to a plea agreement, Coffer was sentenced to 15 years in prison with six years suspended and was ordered to pay $400 restitution, $150 in court costs and a $250 DNA fee after his release from prison.

State Desk on 07/06/2016

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