By REBECCA EVERETT
@GazetteRebecca
Daily Hampshire Gazette
NORTHAMPTON — A Hampshire County Jail inmate accused of killing a poodle during an Easthampton burglary allegedly made his bid for freedom last month, using parts of a pair of nail clippers to dig through the concrete ceiling of his cell and create a 6-by-9-inch hole that opened into a crawl space.
Angel Villanueva, 38, of Springfield, pleaded not guilty in Northampton District Court Friday to charges of vandalism and attempting to escape a penal institution. Judge W. Michael Goggins ordered him held on $10,000 bail on the new charges, though Villanueva is already being held in the jail on a total of $40,000 bail on charges related to three break-ins.
Villanueva has been in the jail since October awaiting trial. He faces charges related to an Oct. 11, 2014, Huntington housebreak and subsequent police chase, and two September 2014 break-ins in Easthampton — including one in which he allegedly killed the homeowners’ toy poodle.
For now, Villanueva is being held in an isolation cell — a 30-day sanction imposed by the disciplinary board at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction. The board found him responsible for violating numerous jail rules in his attempted break, according to Patrick Cahillane, the jail’s assistant superintendent.
Cahillane said he does not know how long Villanueva was allegedly scraping away at the ceiling of his cell — but, he said, “it had to have taken awhile.”
Cahillane said no one has ever successfully broken out of one of the cells Villanueva was in, used primarily for pretrial inmates. “It is relatively rare in that most people realize that the cells in that part of the building are pretty well-constructed,” Cahillane said Friday. “But it does happen.”
The most common attempted escape method is to unscrew plates around windows in the cell. But even if they succeed at that, Cahillane said, the inmates then face steel bars on the window.
“People become desperate, and sometimes that brings about flawed thinking,” he said.
According to court documents prepared by officers at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction, Villanueva may have tried to get out through the window, as well as through the ceiling.
Officer Mark Butler inspected cell 35 on June 15 and found “several pieces of nail clippers that had been secreted between the window screen and frame.” The clippers had apparently been altered so they could be used to unscrew the “tamper resistant” screws in the screen frame, Butler wrote, and some appeared to be “worn down from scraping.”
One of the screws was very loose, the caulking along one side of the window appeared to have been sliced and a 4-inch piece had been removed and then disguised with a white substance, Butler wrote. In the trash, Butler found a cup containing a wet, paste-like substance.
“I scanned the ceiling of the cell and noticed an area above the sink approximately 18 inches in diameter which appeared to be coated in the same substance,” he wrote. He removed the substance and found a hole approximately 6 to 8 inches deep — and, inside that, another hole 3 to 4 inches deep through the “metal mesh backing.”
“The hole had been packed with rags and paper and after being removed I could clearly see into the crawl space above,” Butler wrote in court documents.
Cahillane said cell inspections happen twice a day, and random cell inspections take place once a month. He said often when inmates are attempting to escape, they will try to cover up the evidence, as he believes Villanueva did with the paste-like substance.
Villanueva will be serving his time in isolation until July 25, Cahillane said. At that point, a review board will consider whether it is safe to return him to the same type of cell, he said.
Villanueva has denied charges of animal cruelty, two counts of breaking and entering in the daytime with intent to commit a felony, and two counts of larceny over $250 from a person over 60 or disabled in connection with the break-ins on Loudville Road in Easthampton on Sept. 2 and 22.
He has also pleaded not guilty to breaking and entering in the daytime with intent to commit a felony, larceny from a building and possession of a burglary tool in connection with a break-in on Norwich Lake in Huntington on Oct. 11. He was arrested in Easthampton the same day after leading police on a foot chase through woods and a swamp after he was pulled over on Route 66 in Northampton, according to court documents.
Rebecca Everett can be reached at [email protected].
