Indicted Yell County woman ordered to jail after drug test

Kennan Gililland
Kennan Gililland

LITTLE ROCK -- A Yell County woman who helped two men under federal indictment escape from the Jefferson County jail in 2019 was ordered into custody after she tested positive for methamphetamine use prior to a sentencing hearing Tuesday.

Kennan Gililland, 28, of Ola, pleaded guilty last July to two counts of aiding and abetting escape, admitting on the night of July 29, 2019, she picked up her boyfriend, Wesley Gullett, and another man who was jailed on unrelated charges, Christopher Sanderson, outside the jail, and drove them about 130 miles away, dropping them off north of Dover in Pope County. She admitted she also provided Gullett with some food and other supplies.

The men, who were both being held as federal prisoners, piled bundles of clothing beneath the blankets in their cell to give the appearance they were asleep in their bunks, and then walked off the roof of the jail, past the fence, to escape.

Jailers didn't notice the men disappeared until the morning of July 31, at which time an intensive manhunt was organized. Gullett and Sanderson were recaptured the following day, Aug. 1.

Last December, Sanderson was sentenced to 33 months for the escape, to run consecutively to a 188-month sentence he received on drug and firearm charges he was being held on at the time of the escape.

Gullett was sentenced to an additional 18 months earlier this month to run consecutively to a 35-year sentence he received for drug conspiracy and racketeering charges. Gullett was the reputed head of a large scale methamphetamine distribution network in Pope County run by a violent white supremacist gang, the New Aryan Empire, of which he was reported to be the outside-of-prison president when he was indicted.

On Tuesday, Gililland failed to show up for her 10 a.m. hearing, prompting her attorney, J. Blake Byrd, to contact her mother to find out Gililland was. He finally contacted with her, telling U.S. District Judge James M. Moody Jr. she told him she was in Morrilton headed for Little Rock, having overslept that morning.

"She works from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. and she said she was going to try to get a little sleep before the hearing," Byrd told Moody, "but she overslept."

"Tell her to come on in and get drug tested and then cool her heels until this afternoon when we can get the hearing scheduled," Moody said.

At 4 p.m., Moody opened the hearing with the announcement Gililland tested presumptively positive for methamphetamine use.

"Mr. Hendrix, do you want to say anything about that?" Moody asked.

"I told Ms. Gililland the general policy of this court when we have a presumptive positive," Hendrix said. "The only thing I can say to you is to give her the benefit of the doubt, she's been doing very well, obviously. I can't speak to the workings of the mind of everybody but it sure seems illogical that you would do great until on the eve of your sentencing hearing and then purposefully do a controlled substance."

Hendrix told Moody that Gililland was gainfully employed, was living with her mother, taking care of her two children and had just bought a car.

"I don't know what options there are for you to consider at this point, but of course, we'd ask you consider doing something short of locking her up until we have a negative screen," he said, as Gililland sobbed next to him.

Moody replied the matter was out of his hands.

"That's not my policy and I understand what you're asking me for but that's why we test," he said. "So, I'm going to remand Ms. Gililland at this time and we'll schedule her sentencing once we've had an opportunity to have her tested."

As Moody left the courtroom, Gililland could be heard talking tearfully to Hendrix.

"They can't lock me up," she could be heard saying. "I can't get fired from this job."

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