TWIN FALLS, ID – Two members of the Aryan Knights white supremacist gang have pleaded guilty to murdering two elderly men during a 36-hour crime spree that began with a hospital shootout and prison escape, accepting life sentences to avoid execution.
Skylar Meade received two consecutive life sentences on Tuesday for the killings of James Mauney, 83, and Gerald “Don” Henderson, 72. His co-defendant Nicholas Umphenour, who also pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, is scheduled for sentencing on February 10.
The deadly rampage began in 2024 when Meade, who was serving time at Idaho Maximum Security Institution, was taken to a hospital after cutting his own face. During the return trip to prison, Umphenour opened fire on the guards escorting Meade, and both men escaped in a waiting getaway vehicle.
What followed was 36 hours of terror across Idaho that ended with two innocent men dead. The pair was eventually captured in Twin Falls.
Meade and Umphenour met while incarcerated and both had ties to the Aryan Knights, a white supremacist prison gang. Meade had been locked up since 2016 for aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer with a firearm enhancement, on top of prior convictions for drug possession, grand theft, and smuggling contraband into a prison.
By accepting the plea deal, both men avoided the possibility of capital punishment. Idaho prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty before the agreement was reached.
The victims’ families have not publicly commented on the plea arrangement. Court records do not indicate what connection, if any, the two murdered men had to the defendants.
Life in prison w/o parole is OK, but put them on Do Not Resuscitate orders.