MISSION, Kan. — An inmate who escaped from a Kansas prison in a dog crate and became the subject of a book and a TV movie has died behind bars.
John Manard, who was 45, died Sunday at La Palma Correctional Facility, a private prison in Eloy, Arizona, the Kansas Department of Corrections said. His cause of death is pending an autopsy, department spokeswoman Jennifer King said.
Manard was serving a life sentence for a murder in a Kansas City suburb in a Lansing, Kansas, prison when he met Toby Young, a married mother of two who helped inmates train animals for adoption. They became romantically involved.
On February 12, 2006, Young, then 47, hid Manard, then 27, in a crate and helped him escape.
Prison officials said she abused the trust she had gained while running the program to get Manard out of prison. A guard who recognized Young did not search the van thoroughly.
Young and Manard were captured 12 days after their escape in eastern Tennessee on Interstate 75 between Knoxville and Chattanooga, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of a remote cabin they shared.
Young, whose husband filed for divorce after her arrest, was convicted in state court for her role in freeing Manard. She also pleaded guilty in federal court to giving him a gun. She was released in 2008 and wrote about what happened in a book, “Living With Conviction.”
“John is finally free. But I am devastated,” Young, who has since remarried and goes by the name Toby Dorr, said in a Facebook post after Wednesday. “I pray that you have finally found the peace you have been looking for, John.”
The escape story was also featured on “Dateline” and inspired the Lifetime movie “Jailbreak Lovers.”
In a March 2006 letter to a Kansas City television station, Manard wrote that he and Young “have a fairytale love the size of infinity.”