Eighth accused accomplice in courthouse escape admitted driving suspect to flea market

Armonie Frankson-Dennis went to Broward Sheriff’s Office detectives 18 hours after murder suspect Dayonte Resiles’ July 15 escape from the Broward County Courthouse to tell them her part of the story.

According to her arrest affidavit, Frankson-Dennis admitted to BSO detectives that she gave Resiles a ride to the Oakland Park Flea Market, but she said she didn’t know he’d escaped. She also told deputies, with an attorney present, that Resiles had left the flea market in another car.

After reviewing phone records and surveillance video, detectives decided Frankson-Dennis, 21, indeed was telling a story — and arrested her Tuesday as the eighth accomplice in Resiles’ escape. She, like most of the other seven accomplices, was charged with escape and accessory after the fact of a first-degree felony.

Unlike most of the others, who did not get bond, Frankson-Dennis received a $150,000 bond. She remains in the Paul Rein Detention Facility in Broward.

Resiles escaped on July 15 and was captured July 20 in a West Palm Beach Days Inn. He had been charged with first-degree murder in the 2014 death of Jill Halliburton Su, who was found stabbed to death inside her Davie home. (He also had been charged with five second-degree felonies in unrelated cases.)

Resiles has been awaiting trial and was set to appear in a hearing on the morning of Friday, July 15, to determine whether the death penalty would be applied if he were convicted in the Su case. Before the hearing, Resiles slipped off his shackles, jumped out of his jail jumpsuit, ran out of the jury box, changed clothes, and escaped through a back courthouse door. (He somehow got from the fourth-floor courtroom to the ground floor).

According to the affidavit, Frankson-Dennis told the sheriff’s deputies she’d spoken with Resiles often during his incarceration, usually about collecting money for him from people he knew on the outside. She said he’d mentioned he’d be out of jail soon, but didn’t disclose any details.

Resiles escaped around 9:30 a.m. Frankson-Dennis told deputies she got a call around 9:40 a.m. from a number she said she didn’t recognize. She said it was Resiles, asking her to meet him at an Oakland Park apartment complex to give him money for the jail phone. Upon meeting Resiles at the complex, Frankson-Dennis said he wanted to go to the flea market. She drove him, but detectives said she told them she thought “something was not right.” She said she told Resiles she wouldn’t take him anywhere else. He left in a black car.

That’s where detectives believe Frankson-Dennis parted with the truth, according to the arrest affidavit.

Detectives say a look at the surveillance video from the flea market shows Resiles coming back out of the flea market 1 minute, 44 seconds after going in. They say the video shows he got back into Frankson-Dennis’ 2012 Nissan. The car rolled off screen.

Also, according to the affidavit, a cell phone records check from just after the escape shows five calls to Frankson-Dennis and one text from her to the aforementioned number she said she didn’t recognize. The number belongs to Winston Russell, who police say admitted to being in the getaway car awaiting Resiles outside the courthouse.

Then, detectives say a review of Frankson-Dennis’ jail calls and visits to Resiles turned up discussions of the escape plan in “coded language.”

In other news regarding Resiles, he doesn’t have to undergo the mental examination ordered by the bond court last week.

When bond judge Michael Davis ordered that Resiles have outside contact only with his attorneys, Resiles protested that he wouldn’t be able to tell his family of his mental well-being if it deteriorated. Davis then ordered a mental health exam of Resiles.

Resiles’ attorney, Dohn Williams, protested that such an exam could be used by the prosecution in the trial’s penalty phase. After Williams met with Resiles and confirmed he wasn’t any cause for concern, the state attorney’s office agreed that no examination was necessary.

This story was originally published July 29, 2016 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Eighth accused accomplice in courthouse escape admitted driving suspect to flea market."