Two female inmates slipped out of the Stark Regional Community Correction Center in Louisville, Ohio just after 7 p.m. Monday, climbing toward the roof of the building before disappearing into a nearby nature preserve. Kerriah Ohler and Hope Skerrett remain at large as of Tuesday, and warrants have been issued for both women.
According to Cleveland 19 News, officers responding to the facility in the 4400 block of Lesh Street NE initially believed the two inmates might still be on the roof. That changed once a drone was sent up: it confirmed the women had already left the roof and run into the woods nearby.
Investigators then brought in a K9 to track through the nature preserve. The search turned up more dark-colored clothing scattered in the brush, adding to the picture police have pieced together of the women's movements since they fled. One inmate had been wearing all black, while the other wore a gray sweatshirt with black pants, and one of them left behind a white pair of tennis shoes somewhere along the way.
A Planned Pickup and a Run for Florida
Canton police said the escape was not a spur-of-the-moment dash. Officers believe the plan called for the two women to be picked up near the Walmart on U.S. 62 and then driven to Florida, the station's report notes. It is unclear whether that pickup ever happened before the women were spotted near the facility's roof.
Police have also raised a separate thread in the investigation: Ohler may have had an inappropriate relationship with a center employee who had been recently terminated, according to the same account. Investigators have not detailed what role, if any, that relationship played in the escape itself, and that question remains open.
Entered Into a Statewide Missing Persons System
Both women have been entered as missing in the Law Enforcement Automated Data System, the statewide database used to flag wanted or missing individuals for law enforcement. As of publication, Ohler and Skerrett had not been located, and no updates on their whereabouts had been released.
The Stark Regional Community Correction Center has dealt with at least one prior escape. In 2023, the U.S. Marshals-led Northern Ohio Violent Fugitive Task Force arrested a woman named Ashley Helmick on an escape charge connected to the same facility, according to a U.S. Marshals Service release at the time.
Under Ohio law, escape charges can carry different classifications depending on how a person was being held, per the Ohio Revised Code. It is not known which classification, if any, applies to Ohler or Skerrett, and the exact charges each woman was being held on before the escape have not been disclosed.
