DOCUMENT: Stupid, Crime

Cops: Bra Wire Used In Dopey Jail Escape Bid

Next time, Floridian should try MacGyver's paperclip

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NOVEMBER 16--While locked up in a “scary” Florida jail following a DUI arrest, a Florida Woman removed the metal wiring from her bra and used it to damage the cell door “in an attempt to escape the jail,” according to a criminal complaint.

While the alleged plot by Susan Mae Sheppard, 59, failed, her MacGyver-like ingenuity is worthy of notice.

Sheppard was arrested October 31 on a DUI charge and booked into the Sumter County jail, where she was placed in a holding cell in the booking area. Sheppard, seen at right, gave her address as a residence in The Villages retirement community.

While in her cell, Sheppard “removed the metal wiring from her bra and proceeded to use it to make numerous scrape marks into the glass on the bottom of the holding cell door,” a corrections deputy reported. Sheppard also allegedly sought to “crawl out of a small opening in the holding cell door feet first and had to be directed to pull her legs back into the cell.”

When later questioned, Sheppard reportedly copped to damaging the cell door with her bra wire “in an attempt to escape the jail,” which she described as “scary.”

Sheppard’s harebrained plot--which would have required Shawshank-level time/commitment to succeed--resulted in two additional charges being added to her docket: attempt to escape, a felony, and criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.

Sheppard is free on $11,500 bond. (2 pages)