Policies to be tightened after wanted man walked out of UNC Hospitals

A judge on Monday raised the bond on a man accused of walking out of a hospital late Friday after getting whacked on the head with a machete during a Mebane break-in.

Eleven-year-old Braydon Smith was home alone Friday morning when a man broke into his home on Yarborough Road and put the boy in a closet. Braydon said he got out, grabbed a machete and hit the burglar on the back of the head, causing him to drop the electronics he was stealing and flee the area with two accomplices.

"They tried to take my PlayStation and my phone, but I hit them in the back of the head with a machete," the boy told a 911 dispatcher.

"An 11-year-old child should never have to go through that in their entire life," his mother, Kaitlyn Johnson, said Monday in a phone interview from her home in Kentucky.

Johnson said she happened to be on the phone with her son during the break-in.

"He told me that a car pulled in his driveway. At that moment, I didn’t think anything was unusual until he told me they were getting out of the car," she said.

She said she heard loud banging in the background and was trying to figure out how she could stay on the phone and get a 911 call in Kentucky transferred to Mebane to alert Orange County authorities to the break-in.

"It was terrifying. It was the longest 13 to 17 minutes of my life," she said. "It doesn’t surprise me the way that he reacted. At 30 years old, I can tell you that I don’t know that I would be able to react the way that he did and keep my wits about me."

Jataveon DaShawn Hall showed up at UNC Hospitals in Hillsborough a couple of hours later with a head wound, and officials there notified authorities. He was later transferred to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill because of the severity of the wound.

Hospital police were asked to call the Orange County Sheriff's Office before discharging Hall so he could be taken into custody, sheriff's office spokeswoman Alicia Stemper said.

Shortly before 8 p.m. Friday, a nurse entered Hall’s hospital room and found his bed empty. Hall had told the nurse he needed to leave because the police were going to be looking for him, Stemper said.

Security video showed Hall leaving the hospital in a hospital gown. Deputies weren't notified Hall was gone until Saturday morning.

"Obviously, there was a breakdown somewhere," Stemper said Monday. "I don’t think assigning any blame is going to help anybody. What’s more important is that we find out where the breakdown was and work together with the hospital."

Hall was never in custody while at the hospital, she said, so no deputy was keeping track of him. But the sheriff's office had identified him as a suspect in the break-in and had issued arrest warrants for him by 5:30 p.m. Friday.

UNC Health Care officials issued a statement over the weekend that "emergency department nurses and physicians cannot be both caregivers and law enforcement at the same time," so doctors and nurses weren't keeping an eye on Hall for law enforcement.

They declined to discuss the situation Monday.

Hall was apprehended at his mother's apartment in Burlington on Sunday afternoon.

"I really feel that the ball was dropped in every situation, unfortunately," Braydon's mother said. "They’re fortunate that [another crime] didn’t happen to someone else between his release and the time that he was found, because it wasn’t a short amount of time."

Still, she said, her father is a retired police officer, so she didn't want to blame anyone for the incident.

The sheriff's office is working with UNC Hospitals on revising policies for monitoring people wanted for crimes but not yet in custody, Stemper said.

Braydon's grandmother and other relatives attended Hall's Monday afternoon court appearance, which was handled via video from the county jail. Orange County Assistant District Attorney Byron Beasley said they felt that $100,000 bond was too low.

"Mr. Hall demonstrates himself to be a flight risk," Beasley told Orange County District Court Judge Samantha Cabe in asking that the bond be raised.

Cabe set a $175,000 bond for Hall, 19, on charges of breaking and entering, second-degree kidnapping, assault on a child younger than 12 and interfering with emergency communications.

Hall has two previous larceny convictions from 2017, according to state Department of Public Safety records. His next scheduled court date is July 8.

Authorities are still searching for a second man and a woman who Braydon said took part in the attempted burglary. They were driving a champagne-colored sedan, according to Stemper.