18-year-old charged with helping Shane Pryor escape
Michael Diggs, 18, will be charged with helping Shane Pryor escape, police said.
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An 18-year-old who police say picked up a teen murder suspect after he escaped from the custody of juvenile jail staff earlier this week was charged with hindering a police investigation, escape, criminal conspiracy, and related crimes, police said Friday.
Police believe Shane Pryor, 17, called Michael Diggs shortly after he broke free while being transported by juvenile jail staffers to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for a hand injury on Wednesday. Just before noon, Pryor got out of the vehicle unshackled, then pushed past the two unarmed staffers and fled, police said.
About five minutes later, sources said‚ Pryor called Diggs using a bystander’s phone, and Diggs arrived in a tan Ford Fusion and picked him up. It’s unclear where he took him.
Diggs has refused to speak with investigators, sources said.
Detectives believe Pryor and Diggs met about a year or so ago in the city’s Juvenile Justice Services Center, and have kept in touch since, said a source who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Young people accused of homicides are typically held in a separate wing of the juvenile jail, but the source said investigators believe the two met in a holding cell, where those in custody are typically held before being transported off site to court hearings or doctor’s appointments.
Pryor has been in custody since October 2020, when he was arrested at age 14 along with another teen and charged with killing 54-year-old Tanya Harris.
Court records show that Diggs was arrested in June 2022 when he was 16, and charged with attempted murder, illegal gun possession, and related crimes after police accused him and three others of shooting two teens as they left Simon Gratz High School one afternoon.
But last year, Common Please Court Judge Lillian Ransom threw the case out after Diggs’ attorneys successfully argued that police and prosecutors did not have enough evidence tying Diggs to the shooting. Court records show that prosecutors did not appeal, and Diggs was released from custody in March 2023.