By Juan Ortega
Sun Sentinel
MIAMI — An armed robber serving life in prison staged a daring escape by creeping into a cart, piled with mounds of trash, to reach freedom.
Ronald Bernard McCoy vanished on Halloween 2014, a sunny Friday, wearing what could be mistaken for a costume: his blue prison uniform and an orange traffic vest.
The felon with a long history of violent crimes went on the lam for three days. On his last day on the run, he stole a Ford F-550 truck and drove more than 100 miles from south Miami-Dade to West Palm Beach, where his uncle lives. It abruptly ended when McCoy’s uncle tipped off the cops as soon as McCoy phoned him.
A detailed account of the prisoner’s disappearance from Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City is revealed in a report recently released by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Though a state investigator could find no proof anyone helped McCoy make his getaway, a string of missteps by the prison allowed him to go free. Among them:
- Giving McCoy assignments that let him access various parts of the prison. His position as a yard worker let him reach the trash-pickup area that he ultimately used to escape.
- Improperly inspecting the trash being sent out of prison. A sergeant assigned inmates to check the trash, figuring they’d let no prisoner sneak out.
- Not instantly notifying police of the escape. The prison didn’t ask FDLE for help until about nine hours later, giving McCoy ample time to disappear.
McCoy made use of the prison’s gaps in security, the FDLE concluded.
“It is clear that failure to follow Department of Corrections security protocol played a role in the escape,” the agency’s report said. “In his own words, McCoy exploited the ‘weaknesses’ and vulnerabilities of the facility.”
The serial robber
At Dade Correctional Institution, McCoy was assigned to picking up trash and cutting the grass. Every day, his work crew cut the grass in different parts of the prison, so he grew familiar with the grounds. One staffer, Correctional Officer Marley Patterson, questioned why McCoy, a high-threat inmate, was even given a job that gave him such latitude. It’s unclear why he was assigned to yard work.
McCoy, then 39, wound up at the prison, south of Homestead, after a criminal career that dates back decades. As an adult, he began using a gun to carry out his heists.
He served several stints in prison, first being locked up for two years in the early 1990s, then another six years for robbery from 1995 to 2001.
Not long after his release in 2001, he was on his way back to jail. He reportedly carried out six armed robberies in Alachua County in 2003, and police caught him after he held up a liquor store later that year.
Prosecutors this time pursued a stiffer term against McCoy, labeling him a habitual violent offender. On Dec. 29, 2004, he got a life sentence. But by 2014, after spending a decade in prison, he decided to make a break for it.
The getaway
McCoy woke up about 5:30 a.m. Oct. 31, ate breakfast and went back to his dorm for the prison’s routine morning count of inmates. The staff at Dade Correctional did a headcount about 8 a.m., when all 1,572 inmates were there.
A sergeant, Lashebra Ward, was required to use a long rod to poke the garbage bags heading out of the prison, to ensure no prisoners were hiding inside. But the sergeant failed to do so on Oct. 31, instead assigning inmates to do the poking, the report said. Ward said she delegated the responsibility because she need to tend to a truck making a delivery, it said.
Because McCoy wore his orange work vest, he had access to the trash-pickup area.
At some point that morning, McCoy went there without raising suspicion. He crept into one of the trash carts and piled bags on top of himself. When the assigned inmates poked the bags, they didn’t do it properly. The inmates, without a supervisor right next to them, then wheeled the garbage carts to a dumpster area. There, McCoy stood up from the cart and dashed to freedom.
The next inmate count at 11:30 a.m. showed the prison was missing an inmate. Still, the prison didn’t notify authorities until about nine hours later, giving McCoy ample time to disappear.
“A recount was ordered, which verified that at 2:17 p.m., the correctional facility was one inmate short,” the FDLE report said. “A master count began at 3:05 p.m., and at 4:12 p.m., it was confirmed that inmate Ronald B. McCoy was missing.”
Two hours later, at 6:25 p.m., the Department of Corrections reached out to FDLE for help. The Miami-Dade and Homestead police departments also were notified that afternoon.
The takedown
Authorities issued bulletins describing what McCoy looked like. They mentioned the small scar on McCoy’s neck, as well as the misspelled tattoo on his left arm that read, “Bicep Pysco.” Officials reminded police to “exercise caution” if they encountered McCoy.
About 3:30 a.m. Nov. 3, McCoy was seen by security guards at a labor camp a half-mile from Dade Correctional. McCoy kept calm, saying he worked for a contractor. But the guards didn’t buy it and called 911.
McCoy didn’t worry, though, simply walking off. “The guards kept their distance as instructed,” the report said. “But the police were delayed nearly an hour in arriving on the scene. By then, McCoy had disappeared.”
Later, McCoy went to a plant nursery situated just a few miles north of Dade Correctional. He stole the nursery’s maroon truck, which had a trailer hitched to its back.
McCoy phoned his uncle about 2:30 p.m. Nov. 3, asking to be picked up from a West Palm Beach grocery store. “I need you to meet me,” McCoy said. But instead of helping, his uncle phoned the cops.
Detectives checked the number McCoy had called his uncle from. A man answered, saying he let a stranger use his phone at a gas station at 45th Street and Australian Avenue. About 5 p.m., an officer found McCoy at the station, sitting in the truck and still wearing his prison uniform.
An FDLE investigation soon followed to figure out how McCoy broke out and whether anyone helped him. But an investigator couldn’t find enough evidence to prove who, if anyone, assisted McCoy. Prisoners blamed others, who then would deny involvement.
With so many conflicting statements, it was “impossible to directly connect” any inmate as an accomplice, the report said. The lack of surveillance footage also made it “extremely difficult” to verify people’s stories.