Lawmen not buying Norris’ sleeping story

A teenager charged with harboring a jail escapee says she was asleep when the fugitive entered her home and that she had no idea he was hiding in a back bedroom when she told deputies he was not there.

The defendant, Martina Norris, has been bound to the grand jury on the charge of filing a false report after declining to follow the lead set by her friend, Brittany Jaco, who took a six-month judicial diversion earlier in the day, pleading to the charge of facilitating escape for the same incident.

‘I did lie. I am guilty,’ Jaco admitted in court, saying she told lawmen she had not seen jail escapee Michael Wright Jr., 18, when in fact she had. ‘My friend (Norris) didn’t know he was there because she was asleep right up until the deputies came to the door.’

Lawmen believe Norris was lying when she told them Wright was not hiding inside the McReynolds Road home one day after he and fellow inmate Susej Riddle, 19, became the first prisoners to escape the new Warren County Jail in July.

The men busted out their cell bars and windows and used bed sheets to scale down a wall and then cross the razor wire to freedom. They were both captured the next day in separate locations.

As for Norris’ story that she had no idea Wright, who is a friend of her brother, was not in the house, Sheriff’s Capt. Tommy Myers has doubts.

‘At first she denied even knowing who he was,’ Myers testified, noting at some point the girl took a dog to a back room to get it out of the way. ‘Later on we got permission to search the house and that’s where we found him, in the same room where she put the dog. I have no idea how she wouldn’t see him in there if she opened the door to put the dog in the room.’

Jaco said she did see Wright in the room, noting he was sitting on the bed playing video games. She claimed she did not tell officers because she was scared of Wright, noting she asked to be arrested along with her friend when Wright was found.

However, on further examination, Jaco said it was none of her business as to who was at the home, something Assistant District Attorney Tom Miner seized upon.

‘So you’re telling this court you were scared of this man yet you thought nothing of a strange man who had gotten into the house some time during the night, a man who you knew had been accused of home invasion and kidnapping,’ Miner said. ‘You didn’t even think it was important enough to wake your friend and tell her about that’?

The defense for Norris maintains no one ever told her Wright was in the house, nor did she see him since the door was closed to the room he was in when she rose to answer the deputies’ knock. She also maintains her friend never told her she had seen Wright in the house, although both reportedly made statements they had seen him on The Strip the night of the escape and that he was wearing street clothes. At that point, the girls say they did not realize he had escaped.

Norris was ordered to serve 48 hours for violation of probation resulting from her arrest on the false report charges.