Neo-Nazis suspected of killing 72-year-old gay man after escaping from prison

A white supremacist prison gang member and his accomplice are believed to be responsible for the murders of two elderly men after escaping from prison last week.

Skylar Meade, 31, escaped from law enforcement early Wednesday morning while he was being transferred back to the Idaho Maximum Security Institution in Kuna from Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, multiple outlets reported. He had been brought to the hospital earlier in the night after he injured himself.

Meade escaped after Nicholas Umphenour, who had been released from the same prison one month prior, shot two of the officers transporting Meade in the facility's ambulance bay. Both men are members of the Aryan Knights gang, and had previously been housed together while in prison.

Authorities have linked the deaths of two Idaho civilians to the men — 83-year-old James L. Mauney and 72-year-old Gerald Don Henderson. Mauney was reported missing Wednesday after leaving in his minivan to take his two dogs to a walking path. He was found dead shortly after in Nez Perce County, and his dogs — both alive — were returned to his family.

Henderson was found dead outside his remote cabin in Clearwater County after his partner requested law enforcement check in on him. Ron Thompson, who had been in a relationship with Henderson since 2006, told the Associated Press they had known Umphenour for over a decade after meeting him through another “neighbor kid” they once took in.

Umphenour stayed with the couple for a few months in his late teens when he and his father were not getting along. Thompson said they eventually kicked him out due to his "frightening" behavior, including how he “would always talk about shooting people.”

Umphenour had paid a brief visit to Henderson upon his release from prison a month earlier, which Thompson said made his partner uneasy. When Thompson learned of Meade's escape, his suspicions led him to call the sheriff's office and request they check in on Henderson. Deputies found him outside the cabin with what they believed to be Meade's discarded prison shackles.

Meade and Umphenour were detained 36 hours after escaping from the hospital, about seven hours away from where their victims were found. Police located the stolen minivan in a Twin Falls neighborhood, and shortly after found the two trying to escape in different vehicles. Both are now being held on $2 million bond, and neither have entered a plea deal.

Thompson, who had not been living with Henderson but said the two planned to move in together again, continued to call the crime "senseless," lamenting his partner and their future plans.

“I can’t understand the senseless murder of this beautiful man," he said. "Such a senseless, senseless thing to do.”