Suspect in infant’s slaying escapes from Pinellas jail, quickly caught

LARGO — A man accused in the slaying of his infant son in Ohio escaped from the Pinellas County jail Wednesday and was free for about 10 minutes before he was recaptured, Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said.

“It is absolutely concerning,” Gualtieri said during a news conference Thursday at his Largo headquarters.

Cody Jondreau, 25, was with other inmates in the recreation area of the jail, 14400 49th St N in Clearwater, at the time he escaped. The deputy watching them walked into his guard tower to phone fellow guards, letting them know the inmates were ready to head back inside.

In the guard’s brief absence, Jondreau managed to scale a fence, run across a roof and jump. He landed in another fenced area and scaled a second fence, then jumped again, landed and ran. He suffered considerable cuts in the process, Gualtieri said.

Deputies chased Jondreau to a nearby business, Golf Cart Systems. There, they fired a tazer weapon at him, detained him and returned him to the jail.

Jondreau is accused of killing his 9-week-old son in Williams County, Ohio. The Sheriff’s Office said it didn’t know how he managed to escape capture in Ohio, but he was arrested in Polk County on May 11. On May 28, he was transferred to the Pinellas County Jail.

Sheriff’s officials will ask the state attorney to charge Jondreau with escape after he is returned Ohio. They are waiting to charge him until he is out of the Pinellas jail, Gualtieri said.

The sheriff called the circumstances that led to Jondreau’s escape “the perfect storm.” He said the jail hasn’t seen anything like it in 25 years. But in fact, something similar did happen almost 15 years ago, in June 2006, when a murder suspect escaped from a transport van and bolted from the jail — prompting an approximately three-hour-long manhunt.

Jondreau was within the sight of deputies the entire time and his escape didn’t pose a serious threat to public safety, Gualtieri said. He added that jail officials will be reviewing their safety protocols in the wake of the escape.