A retired Metro Lieutenant spoke exclusively with News 3 about the latest prison escape and his experience leading an investigation to capture another high-profile escapee in 2005.
Ted Snodgrass retired from the department in 2011 after nearly 30 years of service which included helping to arrest Jody Thompson who escaped from a state prison in Carson City in a furniture delivery truck.
"I was in charge of the sergeants that were in charge of the detectives that were doing it,” he said. “They reported to me, I had two squads working it."
A case not typical for him at the time. Initially, Thompson breaking out of prison did not impact Snodgrass and his current investigations. However, Snodgrass was familiar with the convict who was serving multiple sentences for robbing a series of bars.
"I was in charge of the robber’s section,” he said “So it (the break out) didn't really bother me too much because Metro has its own section at the time that worked with U.S. Marshals and the FBI.
However, after a lack of leads, Snodgrass was asked to take over about a month and a half into Thompson on the run.
“My unit was brought in, basically to start following up on what we knew, the people he had seen before he went to prison and friends and acquaintances and stuff like that,” he said.
A tip led police to a neighborhood around Mountain Vista and Flamingo where SWAT arrested Thompson three months after his escape.
“It was extremely stressful I don't think people understand the stress you go under,” he said. " At any moment, this guy is a wild animal. He'll do anything, do anything to save himself.
Snodgrass said the most shocking part was finding Thompson in Southern Nevada.
“We weren't even sure he was in Las Vegas,” he said. “I was surprised when it ultimately came out that he was in Las Vegas, because we thought that he'd leave the country.”
A thought Snodgrass had with the latest arrest of escaped inmate Porfirio Duarte-Herrera. The convicted murderer in the Luxor parking garage bombing in 2007 escaped from Southern Desert Correctional Center on Friday, September 23. Guards noticed him missing Tuesday morning during count. NDOC notified law enforcement agencies and then then the public of the escape hours later. A tip led police to a bus transit station Wednesday night where officers captured Duarte-Herrera before he boarded a 10 p.m. shuttle to Tijuana.
“It just amazes me that these guys do this to get out of prison. They have help, obviously, and they don't engineer any farther than that,” said Snodgrass.
He said escaped inmates from Las Vegas typically return to the town because of familiarity.
“Friends and playground. That's what they're used to. That's where they play and hang with their friends."
He adds Metro Police are typically asked to assist with investigations because of the department’s assets.
“We’re the biggest dog in the show and we can bring the resources.”
Regarding the difficulty of this type of investigation, Snodgrass said it’s a high-stress situation
“You must assume that the person will take someone else's life to escape and that they're not going to give up. You're not going to reason with somebody like that.”
Duarte Herrera and Thompson did not hurt officers during their capture.