Skip to footer

Valentine's Day jail break: Inmate escapes to see his sweetheart

Joseph Andrew Dekenipp escaped on Valentine's Day from an Arizona county jail in order to see his sweetheart. He was captured at a bar where they were supposed to meet.

|
(AP Photo/Pinal County Sheriff)
Joseph Andrew Dekenipp, an inmate of the Pinal County jail, escaped by climbing two walls and crawling through razor wire and was reportedly meeting his sweetheart on Valentine's Day.
  • By Staff Associated Press

| Phoenix, Ariz.

Would you risk razor wire to be with your Valentine?

An Arizona jail inmate who escaped by climbing two walls and crawling through razor wire and was reportedly trying to meet  his sweetheart on Valentine's Day is back in custody.

The Pinal County Sheriff's office says in a release that inmate Joseph Andrew Dekenipp was caught a few hours after he escaped Friday from the county detention center.

The office says he would undergo treatment for serious cuts he got from the wire before being returned to the lockup.

The Arizona Republic reports that the 40-year-old Dekenipp would have had to scale 12-feet of fence, crawl through razor wire, and scale another wire-topped fence in order to escape  the prison.

Dekenipp was arrested without incident after he arrived at a Coolidge, Ariz., saloon and grill where he was to meet his girlfriend. Coolidge is about 35 miles southeast of Phoenix. She reportedly arrived just before the police.

Officials say he told other inmates he was broken hearted for having been away from his girlfriend for so long.

Dekenipp has been in jail since his arrest Jan. 10 on suspicion of vehicle theft, trafficking in stolen property, unlawful flight, and driving on a suspended license.

Officials say he is now facing an escape charge.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Valentine's Day jail break: Inmate escapes to see his sweetheart
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0215/Valentine-s-Day-jail-break-Inmate-escapes-to-see-his-sweetheart
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe