On July 15, 2016, Dayonte Resiles, 22, made a run for it. He escaped Judge Raag Singhal’s courtroom after working his way out of his shackles. He was on the run for six days claiming, “When I escaped, my whole reason was to gather enough info on my case to prove my innocence.” He wrote this in a one-page letter to the judge recently obtained by the press. “I felt I was at a dead end with nowhere to turn to. I tried to appeal to everyone to prove to them I was innocent but my voice went unheard.”
Resiles has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jill Halliburton Su, 59, a prominent wife of a college professor Nan Yao Su, a leading entomologist at the University of Florida, and relative of the Halliburton Oil dynasty. She was a grand-niece of Halliburton Oil Co. founder Erie P. Halliburton.
Su’s body was found in her bathtub on September 8, 2014 by her oldest son Justin, who reportedly thought his mom committed suicide. Turns out an assailant broke a glass door, ransacked parts of the home and stabbed her to death. Su worked as a volunteer since 2005 reading books for the blind at Insight for the Blind, which is based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Resiles was accused of breaking into other homes of the wealthy.
Resiles was caught on camera wearing a white tee shirt. He was found hiding out at a West Palm Beach Days Inn. Facing the death penalty, Resiles says he left the Broward County Courthouse on a mission to prove his innocence. Several reported accomplices were arrested; according to NBCMiami.com, “including juveniles in the courtroom who allegedly used a cellphone to signal to a getaway car to move into position once Resiles ran from the courtroom. He allegedly used a handcuff key to undo his shackles while in a holding cell and easily escaped down a courthouse stairwell and out a door to the waiting car.”
Read the letter in it’s entirety on the next page.
