Convicted sex offender Tommy W. Boyd escapes St. Louis hospital on FOOT
A child sex offender walked out of a St. Louis-area hospital, sparking a widespread manhunt as area schools went into lockdown.
The brazen suspect even posed for a selfie after escaping from the police.
Tommy W. Boyd, 45, escaped from Mercy Hospital South in St. Louis County around 4 a.m. Thursday and now police are asking for help finding him.
After he was taken from prison to the hospital, he was supposed to be under the supervision of two police officers, but he left the hospital alone. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, police were not told about his escape for nearly 30 minutes.
It is unclear who watched him escape.
He was last seen by hospital staff around 3:45 a.m.
Tommy W. Boyd, 45, escaped from Mercy Hospital South in St. Louis County around 4 a.m. Thursday and now police are asking for help finding him
The brazen suspect even posed for a selfie after escaping from the police
The white male, with bald hair and a beard, was described as 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing 154 pounds.
District police released a selfie that Boyd took after the escape around 1 p.m. Thursday. A woman with Boyd may have posted it on social media, said Sergent Tracy Panus of the county police.
In the selfie, he appeared to be wearing the same clothes as when he escaped.
His escape led to the Lindbergh schools being placed on lockdown and students remaining indoors while police searched for the child predator.
Lindbergh’s Kennerly Elementary School is across the street from the hospital, and two other schools are within a mile.
All hospital buildings were checked as a precautionary measure.
Boyd was convicted of a sex crime in 1996 when he was just 18 years old. He pleaded guilty to first-degree statutory sodomy of an 11-year-old boy and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1997.
Shortly after his release from prison in 2007, he tried to pull down a boy’s shorts and threatened to throw him into the stream if he refused.
He approached a nine-year-old boy on a sidewalk in Greene County, Missouri, as he walked to a friend’s house on May 29, 2007.
“Boo. Did I scared you?’ He came up to the boy from behind and said.
He asked the boy about bike trails in the area and offered four quarters if the boy would take him to the bike trails. The boy initially refused, but eventually took the money after Boyd insisted.
When they got to the bike paths, Boyd showed the boy about $2 and offered him another way to make money.
He described in detail the sexual contact he wanted and tried to pull down the boy’s shorts.
Fortunately, the nine-year-old was able to free himself. The sex offender yelled, “Be a good little boy,” as the child ran away.
A jury sentenced him to 30 years in Potosi Correctional Center for solicitation of a child.
He was taken from prison to the hospital on Wednesday with an undisclosed medical condition.