Escaped Idaho inmate was a ‘bright individual’ covered in neo-Nazi tattoos

An Idaho inmate who led police on a two-day manhunt was described by a former prosecutor as a “bright individual” who came out of his first prison sentence with neo-Nazi tattoos on his face and body.

“I was actually disappointed that he had fallen into that group, but I wasn’t shocked,” said Stan Holloway, a former prosecuting attorney in Twin Falls, Idaho, who handled two cases involving Skylar Meade, 31. “Prison can change a guy.”

Meade and his alleged accomplice, Nicholas Umphenour, were captured Thursday afternoon in Twin Falls. Meade had escaped early Wednesday after he and Umphenour got into a shootout with police while Meade was being transported to a corrections facility from a medical center, authorities said.

Umphenour, who police said shot two Idaho corrections officers early Wednesday to break Meade out of custody, had been released in January from the same prison Meade was being taken to before they got away.

Meade and Umphenour had sometimes been housed together at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna, about 12 miles south of Boise, and both were members of the Aryan Knights prison gang, officials said Thursday.

Meade was serving a 20-year sentence for firing several shots at law enforcement officers during a high-speed chase while fleeing a traffic stop. He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, methamphetamine possession, unlawful possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a shank in jail.

Holloway, who prosecuted Meade in the case, first met him in 2010, when Meade was charged with grand theft and fraud. Meade was sentenced to three to five years in prison, Holloway said. 

At the time, Meade appeared to be “a bright individual” who remained mostly quiet and respectful during court hearings, Holloway said. So when Meade appeared before him again in 2016, he was taken aback by Meade’s white supremacist tattoos. 

“I didn’t think he’d come back with an inkling of violence,” Holloway said. “I just figured he would be in the system for a while.”

Photos released by Boise police show Meade with face tattoos bearing the numbers 1 and 11 — for A and K, the first and 11th letters of the alphabet, representing Aryan Knights — state Correction Department officials told The Associated Press. The letters were also tattooed on his abdomen.

The Aryan Knights formed in the mid-1990s in the Idaho prison system to organize criminal activity for a select group of white people in custody, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for Idaho.

Meade had been held in administrative segregation, a type of solitary confinement, at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution because officials determined he was a severe security risk, authorities said.

Holloway, who identifies as half-Japanese, said that Meade did not appear to be violent or racist when they first met and that he never made racist comments in court. 

“I’ve been called all sorts of things,” he said. “It tells me I’m doing my job if I get under their skin. But I never got any vibes from Skylar that it bothered him.”