Convicted sex offender broke out of mental hospital with fake ID: Kansas authorities
Authorities are searching for a 42-year-old convicted sex offender who walked out of a state-run mental hospital in central Kansas by flashing a fake ID at a security checkpoint.
John Freeman Colt is considered by law enforcement as absent without permission from Larned State Hospital in Larned, Kansas. Officials say he left the hospital, where he was a resident of the Sexual Predator Treatment Program, shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday.
“My leadership team at Larned is working closely with local law enforcement to ensure this resident is apprehended quickly and without incident,” Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services Secretary Laura Howard said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. “I am in constant contact with the superintendent at Larned and am actively monitoring the situation.”
Officials say Colt was seen on surveillance cameras walking away from the hospital. He apparently shaved his beard and changed his hair.
A person fitting his description hitched a ride with a local community member and was dropped off at a gas station in town. That person was seen walking away on foot soon after.
Colt was last seen wearing a COVID-19 style face mask, dress pants and a dress shirt, authorities say. He has a distinctive tattoo on his upper left arm with the initials BH.
The Pawnee County Sheriff’s Office activated a local farmers’ alert. The Kansas Highway Patrol and Kansas Bureau of Investigation were also notified of the breakout.
Colt was convicted of sex offenses after he was criminally charged in 2000 and again in 2006, according to records with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.
