A snowbird who used her underwire bra to try to escape from jail in 2021 has landed back behind bars.
Susan Mae Sheppard, 60, of Massachusetts, was booked without bond Monday at the Sumter County Detention Center on a probation violation.
She had been arrested on a charge of driving under the influence in 2021, but was able to get the charge reduced to a charge of reckless driving. In 2022, she was placed on probation for one year and ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.
She was able to avoid prosecution on the escape charge.
Sheppard, who winters in the Village of Buttonwood, had been arrested when her red Lincoln SUV was involved in an accident on Oct. 30, 2021 at Walgreens on County Road 466, across from Southern Trace Plaza in The Villages, according to an arrest report from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. It appeared that Sheppard, a native of Keene, N.H. who was driving on a Massachusetts license, had been driving impaired. She initially agreed to participate in field sobriety exercises, but refused to continue once she had trouble performing the exercises. Her breath sample measured .000 blood alcohol content. She consented to a urine sample. She was transported to the jail, where she was booked on a DUI charge. Sheppard was placed in a holding cell, but a jailer discovered that she had “removed the metal wiring from her bra” and used it to make “numerous scrape marks” on the glass on the bottom of the holding cell door. She attempted to crawl out of a small opening in the holding cell door “feet first,” the arrest report said. She had to be told to “pull her legs back into the cell.”
