Trial witnesses describe Sean Williams’ escape, capture
GREENEVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) — There’s much less need for speculation about Sean Williams’ Oct. 18, 2023 escape from a prison transport van and month-plus on the run after witnesses in his federal trial described those things in detail Wednesday.
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The driver of the van, which Williams has now admitted he escaped from, testified about that day as a prosecution witness in the 52-year-old former Johnson City business owner’s trial. Also testifying were two Pinellas County, Fla. deputies who were closely involved in his Nov. 20 sighting and Nov. 21 capture, along with a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) agent who helped oversee the search for him.
The testimony came on the second day of Williams’ federal trial on two escape-related counts, one for the Oct. 18 incident and another for an alleged escape attempt related to a July 23, 2023 incident at the Washington County jail.
‘I got stuck with that transport’
Cody Reed was one of two Laurel County, Ky. sheriff’s officers who was in the van scheduled to take Williams and another federal detainee to federal court hearings in Greeneville Oct. 18. In fact, he was the driver for the two-and-a-half hour journey.
Now a federal Bureau of Prisons employee, Reed described how he got to the jail, which houses federal detainees on a contract basis, about an hour-and-a-half before the scheduled 5 a.m. departure. He said he wasn’t even assigned to drive that day, but a colleague had a new baby and he took his shift.
“I got stuck with that transport,” Reed said.
Reed, who said he had transported Williams once before but knew nothing about his charges — which by then included three counts of production of child pornography — fed the detainees breakfast and prepped them for travel.
“I placed him in shackles,” Reed said of Williams, adding that he also placed him on the van.
He and a partner then got into the front, which is separated from the rest of the van by a half-inch plexiglass divider and a metal cage, and headed down U.S. Highway 25 and through the tunnel at Cumberland Gap.
Asked if he heard anything from the back during the trip, Reed said only that after passing through the tunnel, “Mr. Williams had hollered and said he was not feeling well.” He added that he told Williams he’d “have to deal with it” but sped up slightly to try and get to Greeneville sooner.
From there they drove to Morristown on U.S. 25 before cutting over to Interstate 81, eventually taking the Bulls Gap exit and heading into Greeneville from the west.
Williams apparently had removed a metal clip from behind a door panel and managed to open his handcuffs many miles earlier, but was still in the van as it slowed on entering Greeneville and heading for the courthouse.
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After waiting for a Washington County vehicle to leave the sally port area where inmates are transferred, Reed was readying to pull in when he heard the other inmate yell.
“I stopped, jumped out and checked,” Reed said. That’s when he discovered Williams wasn’t in the van and the back driver’s side window was broken out. He said he immediately yelled to U.S. marshals who were there.
Reed said he then searched the back of the van. “We found a pair of handcuffs, I think they (other searchers) found a pair of chains.”
Also found was a metal clip and a headrest that had been removed from a seat. The handcuffs were damaged to the point of not being usable, Reed said. Photos of the van showed to the jury included the broken back window, a hinge from the metal cage that had been broken, and the front barrier.
Asked about whether he or his partner ever heard anything, Reed said no and described how the barrier made it very difficult to hear anything in the back.
“We had actually told our command staff multiple times prior to this incident that needed to be fixed,” Reed said.
Search proved fruitless for weeks until Williams moved
Thomas Garrison is the TBI agent who helped oversee the search for Williams starting the morning of Oct. 18. He described a massive effort that included dogs, helicopters, aircraft and dozens if not hundreds of law enforcement agents searching in and around Greeneville.
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None of it was successful. Another witness, a U.S. marshal who Williams later allegedly told about that day, said Williams described quickly getting onto the roof of a building, then climbing down later on Oct. 18 after the search took to the air. He told the marshal he then found an abandoned house that even included some food he was able to eat.
Garrison said the search transitioned to a more long-term phase that included physical surveillance, checking phone and social media activity of family and friends and trying to develop informants. None of that yielded any success, nor did the hundreds of tips they got — until a tip Nov. 17 that Williams had been spotted in Sylva, N.C.
Agents didn’t find him right then but did obtain security footage of Williams getting into a truck. They were able to determine it was a Toyota Tacoma made between 1998 and 2000, and on Nov. 18 learned a similar model had been reported stolen out of Greeneville Nov. 16.
Williams slips up
Despite meticulous planning by Williams detailed in journals that came into evidence Wednesday, one thing he did not do was obtain a different license plate and put it on the stolen truck.
As jurors listened intently, Garrison described how that oversight allowed TBI to coordinate with agencies that use “Flock cameras” — a technology that can read license plates from cameras placed along roadways. TBI learned that a camera somewhere in Clearwater, Fla. had photographed the truck with its original license plate shortly after noon on Nov. 18.
TBI immediately shared information about Williams and the vehicle with agencies throughout Florida.
Young deputy uses tech to track down Williams
Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputy Ashley Hughes followed Garrison on the stand. She told jurors she’d been an officer for less than three years when she saw the “BOLO” (be on the lookout) for Williams and decided to research possible ties he might have to the area “and where he would possibly go.”
Somehow, Hughes learned that Williams’ father had once owned a house in Seminole, Fla. She reached out to a fellow deputy about both of them driving by the location, and said that deputy arrived at the house and didn’t see the truck.
She described driving on past that neighborhood on a thoroughfare, and then seeing a truck that looked like the one described in the BOLO. It was several lanes over from her with its tailgate down, so she couldn’t see a license, but she slowed and saw a tag that wasn’t from Florida.
She said Williams took a couple of turns that may have been evasive if he had seen her car, but she eventually saw him pull into a driveway. It was around 11 p.m. Nov. 20. Hughes said she was able to confirm the license plate using binoculars, and that she saw a man get out but wasn’t sure it was Williams, or whether it was a resident of the home.
It wasn’t, and the homeowners actually called and said a man had walked up to the door and dropped a duffel bag. They let Hughes, who never saw Williams return to the truck, watch their doorbell camera video, which she later saved.
Jurors were able to see a video showing a man walk up to the front door and drop a bag. Hughes said she processed the truck before her shift ended at 6 a.m. Nov. 21, but that she came back on at 6 p.m. that night and kept researching based on information from a journal she found in the truck. It included a reference to “safe places” that included 7-11.
“I started going to every 7-11 in the area spreading the word, showing pictures of him,” Hughes said.
A clerk at one 7-11 store later called to say he thought Williams was there. Hughes immediately went there, but Williams had just left. She watched some store video and saw what looked like the same person she’d seen the previous night, so she made a radio call for officers to set up a “full search perimeter.”
Enter officer Brissett and K-9 Voodoo
Dominic Brissett was among the officers to immediately respond. He told jurors that he and his K-9, Voodoo, had also helped search for Williams, unsuccessfully, the previous night.
Brissett said he was in the general area and heard that Williams may have been heading north on foot on a greenway called the Pinellas County Trail. Another officer reported seeing Williams leave the trail headed west and Brissett headed to that spot.
He got his dog, Voodoo, on a scent and with another deputy began tracking. Brissett said the dog took him south between two houses before briefly losing the trail. Brissett took the dog back in widening circles until it regained the scent.
“Soon he gave a proximity alert between two houses,” Brissett said, describing that as Voodoo getting frantic and wagging his tail as he does when he is very close to a subject.
Brissett noticed a covered porch with a lot of items on it and thought Williams might be there, but the dog “alerted to a fence jump,” then leapt over a fence. Brissett said he followed, heading north between the fence and a house, and turned off his flashlight.
“We came up on a tarp, the dog nudged it to the side and I saw the suspect,” Brissett said.
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After a brief struggle, officers arrested Williams, who was wearing the same clothes from the home doorbell video of the previous night. Brissett said he then saw Williams’ face and was able to make a positive identification.
Sean Williams had eluded authorities for 35 days, far longer than the norm for an escaped inmate.
Offered a chance to cross-examine Brissett, Williams declined, but when Brissett identified him from across the courtroom for jurors, Williams offered a wave back to him that looked like a sign of respect as much as anything.
Williams’ trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. Thursday, when he is expected to call his first of multiple witnesses.
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