Ben Finley | Bucks County Courier Times
Delaware County officials said a warrant for Michael Edgerton was put in a national database. Bucks officials said they checked but it wasn't there. Police say Edgerton shot a cop in North Carolina.
Three months before shooting a cop in North Carolina, Michael Edgerton of Upper Southampton walked out of Bucks County prison.
That should not have happened, Delaware County officials said, because Edgerton was wanted by their parole department.
Delaware County had an arrest warrant for Edgerton, and had entered that information into a national law enforcement database two days earlier, according to Delaware County parole supervisor Chris Pawlowski
But a Bucks County judge, the district attorney and the head of corrections here said they knew nothing about the warrant when Edgerton was freed from Bucks without bail Aug. 20.
The FBI's National Crime Information Center was checked, said Harris Gubernick, director of Bucks County's department of corrections. And Edgerton's arrest warrant did not appear, he said.
"If we had him on NCIC, we never would have released him," Gubernick said.
On Wednesday, Edgerton shot a police officer who pulled him over on I-95 in North Carolina, police said. The officer, John Taylor, was shot in the neck, torso and wrist but is expected to make a full recovery.
Edgerton, 38, killed himself in North Carolina before the cops could arrest him. His girlfriend, Renee Phillips, 43, also of Upper Southampton, is in police custody and charged as an accessory to the officer's shooting.
Delaware County wanted Edgerton because he violated his parole when he was charged, along with Phillips, with stealing a car in Upper Southampton in August. After the arrest, a Bucks district judge sent both of them to Bucks County prison in lieu of $40,000 bail apiece. But Edgerton and Phillips were released a few weeks later after requesting a bail reduction.
Bucks County Judge Albert Cepparulo ordered that bail for Edgerton and Phillips be reduced to nothing. Edgerton walked, two days after Delaware County said the warrant was issued for his arrest, according to court records.
Cepparulo's office on Friday that he was unaware of any arrest warrant for Edgerton.
Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler said his staff looks into the criminal background of a defendant before attending that person's bail modification hearing. He said his office was aware that Edgerton was on parole in Delaware County, but not aware of the warrant for his arrest.
Although not speaking for Cepparulo, Heckler, a former county judge, said the issue of Edgerton's parole could have come up at the bail-modification hearing. Heckler said many factors go into a judge's consideration when modifying a defendant's bail. Those factors can include a defendant's need for drug treatment and his alleged crimes being non-violent
The newspaper was unsuccessful in reaching Cepparulo for comment regarding the hearing.
According to court documents, Cepparulo ordered Edgerton to live at Next Step Recovery, a drug rehabilitation house on Farmbrook Drive in Bristol Township as a condition of his bail modification.
Edgerton never showed up there, said Ed Donahue, a contact at Next Step Recovery.
Gubernick, of the department of corrections, said Edgerton was released from prison about 3 p.m. Aug. 20.
"It's tragic," Gubernick added. "And what concerns me is the first thing we do is try to blame someone for it opposed to trying to figure out what we need to be doing to try to fix it."
In October, Edgerton and Phillips skipped their preliminary hearing on the car-theft charges out of Upper Southampton. On Tuesday they allegedly stole a Geo Prism in Middletown. The car had guns inside, police said. On Wednesday, the Roanoke Rapids Police officer was shot.
