Putnam County Jail Escape
A Shawshank Story
Chase Matheson - January 27, 2024
PUTNAM COUNTY, TN -- Friday January 26, 2024 at approximately 4:47pm CST news broke on the Official Putnam County Sheriff's Office Facebook and Twitter pages that there had been an escape.
Jack Janes is a convicted felon and sex offender who was serving time for multiple crimes including weapons possession and "violation of community supervision". Janes had "walked out" according to the official press release. Our sources have revealed there is a lot more to the story.
At 3:50pm yesterday afternoon I received notice that the inmate had escaped from the Putnam County Jail. My source told me the inmate had gone missing around 830am that morning but I was unable to verify this at the moment I received the information. Since I did not have but one source at the time, I could not immediately report on the escape. An hour later it became public, but the press release was unusually vague.
The press release does not mention the time of the escape, nor many other details. Over the last few hours, we have been able to confirm from multiple unconnected sources what really happened.
Screen Capture showing time of announcement was 4:47pm cst
Message from source received 3:50pm cst/ 1 hour before the public was notified
Several internal sources have confirmed that the inmate somehow found a way to open a door leading to some form of an access shaft, climbed and crawled his way to an area in or near the Sally Port--the controlled access entrance of the jail--and quite literally "walked out" sometime between 8:20am and 8:40am Friday morning.
Sources also tell the Patriot Punk Network that no one noticed the inmate was missing until sometime after 1pm--or almost 5 hours after his suspected escape--even then, they only thought he was missing. It took until around 2pm before the realization set in that the inmate had actually managed to escape.
His bed was allegedly stuffed with blankets and pillows, and the time of escape coincides with the busiest time of the day for Court Appearances--Friday just before 9am. Also important to note, there is speculation that inmate Janes had only been moved to that particular cell a few days prior.
Putnam County Jail sits less than 1 mile from more than one Elementary School, and within walking distance to nearly a dozen other schools. No schools went on lockdown on Friday according to multiple different school staff. The official spokesperson for Putnam County School has not yet responded to our requests for comment.
Over the last several years the Sheriff has made multiple public comments about the safety of schools, but when it comes to putting this grandstanding into practice, the Sheriff's Department just failed miserably.
There are plenty of questions yet to be answered.
How did a missing inmate go unnoticed for hours by Jail Staff?
How did he just "walk out?"
Did he have tools?
Did he have help?
Why were schools not notified?
Many of these questions are likely to go unanswered for a long time. If and when we find out more we will be sure to keep you updated.