Cellphones, Facebook Chats & A Tip: How deputies found the escaped NERCC prisoner
Michael Todd Hart
(Itasca County Jail)
DULUTH, Min. – Court documents are showing how deputies say they tracked down Michael Hart after he escaped from from Northeast Regional Corrections Center (NERCC) and stayed on the run for about 2-weeks.
The information was found in the charging documents for Devone Shackelton, Michael Hart’s girlfriend.
Shackelton was charged with one count of Felony Aiding an Offender.
The documents show deputies were able to use electronic methods to track Shackelton and then eventually Hart.
Deputies discovered Shackelton was sending messages to a Facebook account tied to Shackelton’s deceased father.
They believed Hart was using the account of Shakelton’s father.
Deputies then were able to determine Hart had allegedly purchased a pre-paid cellphone one week after his escape from NERCC.
Deputies then began tracking that cellphone to the residence where Hart and Shackelton were arrested.
The charging documents also said a Crime Stoppers tip helped lead to tacking down Hart.
The documents say Shackelton surrendered to authorities without resisting.
Devon Michelle Shackelton
(Itasca County Jail)
The charging documents say Hart refused to leave the house where he was taken into custody.
Hart hid in a crawl space and refused to come out to deputies. Deputies say the saw Hart reaching for a void the crawl space. They say Hart refused to stop reaching for the void and surrender. They say deputies then shot Hart with a pepper ball in his midsection. After being shot with the pepper ball, Hart then left the crawl space.
After he was removed from the home, deputies say Hart was handcuffed and became verbally abusive towards deputies.
The charging documents continue to allege Hart told deputies that he had a gun in his back pocket, but Hart resisted efforts to search his body.
Hart was eventually searched and led to squad car.
On the way to the squad car, Hart allegedly told deputies that they should uncuff him so he could fight each deputy “one on one”.
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Once arriving at the squad car, Hart fought deputies’ efforts to placed him in the car by spitting on two deputies and kicking at one.
Hart was eventually placed in the car. Deputies say once in the car, Hart was banging his head on the cage in the back of the squad car during the tip to jail.
Back at the home where Hart was taken into custody, deputies looked into the void in the crawl space that Hart had been focusing on.
Deputies say they discovered a cellphone and two baggies of a substances that eventually tested positive for methamphetamine.
Shackelton is slated to make her initial appearance in court in mid-November.
