Ex-jailer in Mississippi is charged in escape of inmate who had standoff with Chicago police

HERNANDO, Miss. (AP) — A former employee of a Mississippi jail has been arrested and charged in the June escape of Joshua Zimmerman, an inmate who fled to Chicago and was captured there last week after a 15-hour standoff with police at a restaurant just blocks from the Democratic National Convention.

Ronnie Hunt was charged with conveying articles useful for the escape of a prisoner, Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesperson Bailey Martin said Tuesday. Martin said “additional charges are probable.” She did not respond to a question about whether Hunt is represented by an attorney.

The DeSoto County Sheriff’s Department said Hunt, 32, has been fired from his job as a deputy jailer, WREG-TV reported. He was being held about an hour’s drive away in the jail in Lafayette County, Mississippi.

The U.S. Marshals Service said Zimmerman escaped June 14 from the DeSoto County Courthouse in Hernando, Mississippi, where he was being held on attempted murder and armed robbery charges. He was also awaiting extradition to Houston, where he’s charged with murder, the Marshals Service said.

Investigators said last week that they believe Zimmerman was working at the seafood restaurant where he was captured. The restaurant is about a half-mile from the United Center, where the political convention was being held. The Marshals Service said there was “no connection or threat to the event or those attending.”

Zimmerman was wearing street clothes, not a jail jumpsuit, when he escaped in Mississippi. A screenshot from a courthouse security video showed him wearing khaki pants and a white shirt and no handcuffs.

According to court records in Harris County, Texas, Zimmerman is accused of fatally shooting a woman, Keyanna Mercer, at a Houston motel on Sept. 2, 2023. The two were asked to leave the motel after multiple complaints of fighting, and when staff members checked the room to see if they had left, they found Mercer’s body with a gunshot wound to the head, police said.

Court records also show Zimmerman was arrested in Connecticut in 2022 on a felony sexual assault charge. He pleaded not guilty and was freed on a $200,000 bond, but a warrant was later issued for his re-arrest.

The DeSoto County sheriff, Thomas E. Tuggle II, told WREG-TV after Zimmerman’s escape: “The notion that he had help, that’s false. The notion that he had an extra set of clothes, that’s false. This is a career criminal. He knew what he was doing.”