NORTHAMPTON — A convict escaped the custody of the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office last week while visiting his family in Springfield, about a month before the scheduled end of his sentence, and was apprehended on Monday afternoon.
Travaughn Gibson, 30, was in a residential program in Hampden County as part of his community re-entry plan, according to the sheriff’s office, and was no longer an inmate at the Hampshire County Jail and House of Correction. On Thursday evening, he removed his GPS ankle monitor and was considered escaped.
Gibson was due to be released from custody on Oct. 14.
The Gazette first reported the escape online at Gazettenet.com on Monday morning. Thomas Mitchell, a spokesman for the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office, wrote in a 3 p.m. email that the office “just got word that Mr. Gibson has been apprehended in Springfield by our investigatory teams, in conjunction with the State Police, and is on his way back to our facility.”
On Friday, a warrant was issued in Northampton District Court charging Gibson with escape from a penal institution or court. Mitchell said the sheriff’s office did not put out a public notice due to the type of escape and a lack of danger to people near the jail.
“The public is notified when there is an escape from the facility (the jail and house of correction on Rocky Hill Road). For example, if an inmate should scale the fence or leave the facility grounds by some other unauthorized means, the local populace and local authorities would be notified immediately,” Mitchell wrote in an email. “Mr. Gibson, who was serving a sentence for shoplifting by asportation, was not in the facility at the time of his escape and there was not a public safety issue in the area of the facility.”
Northampton District Court records show that Gibson was charged with shoplifting a pair of boots from Deals & Steals in Northampton in February 2020, then charged again in May 2020 with shoplifting more than $200 worth of air fresheners, condoms, speakers and other merchandise from a CVS Pharmacy.
On Jan. 12, 2021, a judge ordered Gibson to serve two years of probation, but that April, according to a probation violation notice, he left a residential drug treatment program and could not be found for four months; on Aug. 17, 2021, he was sentenced to 20 months in jail for the probation violation, and records show another 60-day sentence for the CVS incident.
The records note that in January 2021, Gibson had three open cases in Springfield District Court and he resolved two others in Holyoke. Police reports allege that Gibson’s history of shoplifting cases dates back at least to 2010, with guilty pleas entered in Palmer, Springfield and Westfield.
“Travaughn Gibson was recently moved to a residential community program outside of Hampshire County to finish his community re-entry process,” Mitchell wrote to the Gazette. “While visiting with family members on the evening of Thursday, September 8, 2022, Mr. Gibson made a bad decision and removed his electronic monitor while in the Springfield area.”
Mitchell described Gibson as “successful in his programming during his stay at the Hampshire County House of Correction” and said he had been “working on a full re-entry process with his family.”
In August 2017, Gibson escaped from the custody of the Hampden County Sheriff’s Office and was recaptured six days later by a multi-agency apprehension task force. At the time, authorities said, he had four months left on his one-year sentence for drug possession and larceny.
According to published news reports, Gibson was part of the Day Reporting Program that allowed him to live in his own home and report to the Ludlow jail every day for a community work detail. He cut off his GPS monitor in Springfield at around 11:45 p.m. on Aug. 23, 2017, and the Hampden County Sheriff’s Office notified the public the next day.
Mitchell said the Hampshire County Sheriff’s Office remains committed to using electronic monitoring “as a means of gradually transitioning inmates from incarceration to community-based settings.”
“The situation with Mr. Gibson represents one failure out of the hundreds of men who have successfully rejoined their families and communities via the HSO’s electronic monitoring program,” Mitchell wrote. “As with all our programs, our electronic monitoring program is constantly re-evaluated. Now that Mr. Gibson has been re-apprehended, we intend to discern his method of disabling his monitor so that we may prevent such incidents in the future.”
Brian Steele can be reached at bsteele@gazettenet.com.