A 17-year-old accused of murder escaped from custody outside CHOP, was picked up by accomplice

A 17-year-old accused of murder escaped from custody Wednesday afternoon during a medical visit to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and police say they believe he was picked up by an accomplice within an hour.

Shane Pryor, who was charged with killing a woman in 2020, was being taken to the hospital by juvenile detention center staff due to an injury to his hand, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

As he got out of the car just before noon, Vanore said, “he was able to escape from staff and run from the area on foot.” He was not shackled.

Pryor went in and out of some nearby buildings, Vanore said, looking for assistance and at one point asking to use someone’s phone. Investigators believe he called an accomplice, who then picked him up in a car, Vanore said. He was out of the area within an hour, Vanore said. He declined to specify where police believe he was headed, though he said U.S. Marshals and SWAT officers had expanded their search area.

On Wednesday night, the U.S. Marshals Service in Philadelphia said Pryor could be driving a stolen blue Ford F-150 truck with a Pennsylvania license plate of ZTS-0503.

Police described Pryor as about 5-foot-7 and 180 pounds. He was wearing a blue sweatshirt and sweatpants, and socks and sandals.

Vanore said officers searched area buildings and parking garages. No one was asked to shelter in place, but CHOP asked all nonessential staff, patients, and families to leave some of its buildings.

Pryor was 14 when he was arrested in October 2020, and has been held at the Juvenile Justice Services Center ever since, as his case wound through the courts. He and another teen have been charged with killing 54-year-old Tanya Harris in an alleyway in Northeast Philadelphia.

On Oct. 10, police say Pryor and Kiyan Williams, 15, met with Harris outside of a corner store near 7400 Torresdale Ave. The three walked into an alleyway, where Pryor told police he paid Harris for sex, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.

According to the records, surveillance video shows that 10 minutes later, the two teens ran out of the alley. A bystander found Harris’ body a few hours later, slumped over a railing with a gunshot wound to her head.

Pryor told detectives that he was in the alleyway and present during the killing, but that he was not the shooter, according to the affidavit. Police say he told them about the person he was with, a man in his late 20s he said he knew from the neighborhood who he said pulled the gun and suddenly shot Harris.

Police, however, say the video shows that he was actually with Williams, and that the two had been walking together in the neighborhood hours before the shooting.

Pryor’s lawyer, Paul Dimaio, said Pryor maintains that he is innocent and did not shoot the woman.

Just last month, Dimaio said, he and Pryor asked a judge to send the case back to juvenile court. Dimaio said that a doctor’s forensic evaluation presented during the hearing suggested Pryor could be rehabilitated through the juvenile justice system.

Common Pleas Court Judge Lillian Ransom denied the motion, requiring Pryor’s case to remain in adult court as it moves toward a potential trial.

Dimaio said Pryor may have lost hope after that decision, triggering his decision to escape.

“He’s been reaching out and trying to find out what is the next step in his case,” Dimaio said. “It could be that this really upset him.”

Dimaio said that Pryor had been jumped by other teens inside the juvenile jail, and that the visit to the hospital for a hand injury may have been related to those attacks.

“He has said that he didn’t do this, and that may weigh heavily on him. They’re kids, but they know what they’re looking at when it comes to going to trial — potential life in prison.”

Pryor’s escape from juvenile staff custody follows the escape of four people from the city’s Department of Prisons in the last year. In May, 18-year-old Ameen Hurst, who is accused of four murders, and Nasir Grant, 24, broke out of the Philadelphia Industrial Correction Center — an unprecedented episode caused by a series of institutional failures. Both were caught within about a week.

Then, in September, a 30-year-old woman briefly escaped from PICC by slipping out an unsecured door. Angie Molinuevo then climbed two razor-wire-lined fences before landing on rocks along the Delaware River banks, where prison staff captured her.

Finally, in late November, 34-year-old Gino Hagenkotter escaped while performing supervised work outside on the jail grounds. His body was found about two weeks later in an abandoned warehouse in Kensington. Officials said he died of a drug overdose.