Man whose escape from a Kansas prison was the subject of a book and a TV movie dies behind bars

MISSION, Kansas — An inmate whose escape from a Kansas prison while hiding in a doghouse became the subject of a book and a television movie has died behind bars.

John Manard, 45, died Sunday at the La Palma Correctional Facility, a private prison in Eloy, Arizona, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections. The cause of death has not yet been determined, said department spokeswoman Jennifer King.

Manard was serving a life sentence in a Lansing, Kansas, prison for a murder in a Kansas City suburb when he met Toby Young, a married mother of two who helped inmates prepare animals for adoption. They began a romantic relationship.

On February 12, 2006, Young, then 47, hid Manard, then 27, in a box and helped him escape.

Prison officials said she took advantage of the trust she had gained while running the program to run Manard out of prison. A guard who recognized Young did not search the van thoroughly.

Young and Manard were captured 12 days after their escape in eastern Tennessee on Interstate 75 between Knoxville and Chattanooga, about 90 miles south of a remote cabin they shared.

Young, whose husband filed for divorce after her arrest, was convicted in state court for her role in Manard's rescue. She also pleaded guilty in federal court to giving him a gun. She was released in 2008 and wrote about the events in the book “Living With Conviction.”

“John is finally free. But I am devastated,” Young, who has since remarried and is now called Toby Dorr, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “I pray that you have finally found the peace you have been seeking, John.”

The escape story was also shown on “Dateline” and was the inspiration for the Lifetime movie “Jailbreak Lovers.”

In a March 2006 letter to a Kansas City television station, Manard wrote that he and Young had “a fairytale love of infinite magnitude.”