Convicted murderer Donnie Ray Westbrook escaped from Henderson County Sheriff’s Department custody after a jury handed down the sentence of life in prison on Aug. 18.
When transport Deputy Glen Loper escorted him back to the holding cell at the Henderson County Justice Center, Westbrook jerked himself away from the grip of Loper and darted out the back door.
An all-out manhunt ensued throughout the evening and into the early morning hours. No one caught him. Not the helicopter in the air, nor the Texas Rangers, nor the U.S. Marshals, nor the Henderson County Sheriff’s Department task force; nor two packs of trained dogs.
Nobody could sniff him out — not even the Athens Police Department, at least not until a dispatcher took the all-important 9-1-1 call.
Westbrook turned himself in just two blocks from where he fled 17 hours earlier.
He was convicted of stabbing Jerry Jeff Huff, 41, last November in Cherokee Shores. Huff died later at the hospital.
When the penalty phase of his murder trial resumed at 1:15 p.m. that day, Westbrook was in custody, properly shackled as a convicted murderer, sitting where he had been pronounced guilty the day before after two hours of deliberation by a 392nd District Court jury.
Craig Rhoton, of Sterling Monument, heard about Westbrook’s escape, read the physical description, but when a polite young man walked into his office to borrow the telephone — perfectly fitting that description — Rhoton said he didn’t have a clue that he was talking to the fugitive from justice he’d been reading about.
Westbrook told him he had been riding with a friend, they got into an argument and the friend made him get out of the car. He told him he just needed to use the phone.
After calling a friend to come get him, he made the decision to call 911 and turn himself in.
