INDIANAPOLIS -- The story of how a woman escaped from the custody of the Marion County Sheriff's Office and was later recaptured reads less like notes from court documents and more like a scene from a movie.
Around 8:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve, police arrested 26-year-old Sheila Martin on charges of theft and possession of cocaine, as well as five other outstanding warrants, according to the probable cause documents.
She spent her first few hours of 2017 in the General Women's Holding area of the Arrestee Processing Center on Market Street.
Around 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 1, police say she stood up from her seat, walked through a broken door frame, and got in a line -- the "Release to Street" line.
Martin was then escorted out of the building, along with other people who were actually supposed to be released.
Deputies realized she wasn't in the APC about 40 minutes later.
A couple of days after she escaped, somebody called 911, saying they saw a woman they believed was Martin. They recognized her face from news stories about her escape.
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On the way to an apartment complex in the 7100 block of Shrewsberry Lane, the tipster called back, telling police the woman's description and what apartment she entered.
Police knocked on the apartment door, and a woman matching that description answered. When police asked what her name was, she said "Sheila Martin," according to court documents.
With nobody else in the apartment, police found blue cards with her name on them. Those cards are given to people as a reminder of their next court date. They had Martin's name and ID number given to her on New Year's Eve.
Sheriff's deputies also found an empty box of red hair dye, two rubber gloves, socks and a towel. The socks and towel had red dye on them.
At the apartment, the deputies who found the dye mentioned it to a nearby lieutenant.
According to the probable cause, Martin then uttered, "I didn't like the way I looked on the news, so I dyed my hair."
She faces a new charge of escape, a Level 5 Felony.
