York Teen Who Escaped Jail Van Pleads Guilty

By Sam Thrift Wednesday, August 17, 2011

One of the two juveniles accused of escaping custody while being transported from the York-Poquoson Courthouse to the Merrimac Juvenile Detention Center Facility in May pleaded guilty to two charges Tuesday.

Tried as an adult, 17-year-old Tara Blair accepted the plea agreement that included a two-and-a-half year sentence for escaping by force and a 12-month sentence for intimidating or impeding and officer.

Blair’s sentence will be suspended for 10 years upon entrance to the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice for an indeterminate period of time. Barbara Cooke, the prosecutor from the York-Poquoson Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office, said the amount of time Blair will serve is determined by a point system used by the DJJ.

The guidelines provided by the DJJ say that an inmate's initial length of stay is calculated by determining the most serious committing offense and most serious prior offense, assigning a severity level to each and then making adjustments for chronic offense behavior. Based on these qualifications, the DJJ has an assigned amount of time the “resident” will stay in the facility.

Blair and the other accused juvenile were in York-Poquoson Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court the morning of May 19 for a hearing on felony property charges. When the two were being driven way back to Merrimac around 12:30 p.m., Blair was able to crawl through the partition that separates the driver from those in custody, surprise and then overpower the driver. The driver had taken Crafford Road, a lightly traveled road off Goosley near the Lackey neighborhood.

With the driver’s keys, Blair let the other juvenile out of the van. They ran to the woodline, where Blair unlocked their shackles, then ran into the woods.

The driver, a transportation officer for the Merrimac Center, was uninjured.

The York County Sheriff’s Department apprehended the juveniles around 6:30 p.m. the day they escaped, after they were spotted walking along Runaway Lane near the Edgehill neighborhood off Route 17, across from York High School. Captain Jim Richardson of the York-Poquoson Sheriff’s Office said both suspects ran when they saw the police, who gave chase and caught the pair.