John Michael Manard was serving a life sentence at Lansing Correctional Facility in Kansas when he met Toby Young, now known as Toby Dorr, a married woman who was running a dog program in the prison. Over the next few months, Manard and Dorr developed a relationship that ultimately resulted in Dorr helping Manard escape from prison in February 2006.
According to the Kansas City Star, Manard was sentenced to life in prison for a fatal carjacking in 1996 that took place when he was 17 years old. Manard told the outlet that he made a mistake when he was still a “child” and he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. His accomplice, Michael Yardley, claimed he was the one holding the gun and it went off accidentally.
However, since Manard committed a felony that caused someone’s death, he was charged and convicted of first-degree murder. He had been in prison around 10 years before he met Dorr and the two began planning their escape. The couple was on the run for 12 days, living in a cabin in a small village in Tennessee, until they were tracked down and arrested.
Manard was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for unlawful possession of a firearm which was added to his state sentences for first-degree murder and jailbreak. Where is John Michael Manard today?
Manard Is Serving His Life Sentence With the Kansas Department of Corrections
Kansas Department of CorrectionsLansing Correctional Facility
In 2007, Manard was sentenced in Leavenworth County District Court to 130 months in prison for the jailbreak and a few years later, he received 10 years in federal prison for possessing a firearm unlawfully during that time. At the time of his state sentence, Manard said he had no regrets about the escape and any sentence would be worth the 12 days of freedom he got.
According to LJ World, Manard’s attorney explained, “What he meant by that was that it was worth it to him to serve an additional 130 months in prison for the brief period of time that he got to spend with Toby Young – in his value system. He’s a realist. He doesn’t ever expect to get out of prison.” Manard was also ordered to pay over $7,400 to the state for expenses they incurred in the search for the escaped convict.
According to the Kansas Department of Corrections public records, Manard, 42, was moved out of state on December 18, 2017, for housing. The state of Kansas has announced in recent years that they would be moving many male prisoners out of state due to overcrowding in Kansas facilities. In 2016, Manard was in a prison in New Hampshire, the Kansas City Star reported, and Dorr visited him there with her new husband.
Manard Denied Afterward That There Was Any Manipulation & Said He Loved Dorr
Manard told the Star that he was in love with Dorr and he hadn’t manipulated her: “I loved Toby and was 100 percent committed to her,” he wrote in a letter to the outlet. He continued:
I’ve always been given the role of the ‘master manipulating, scumbag criminal with no morals’ and Toby the, ‘poor manipulated, naive, gullible, depressed, desperate, good girl,’ that I took advantage of. Why did I stay with her once I was out if I was just manipulating? I NEVER manipulated her in the least! I loved Toby with all that I was.
For her part, Dorr told the Star, “I think at that point in my life, I was just desperate to be loved, to feel like somebody loved me. Maybe John was wearing his inmate hat and he was perceptive enough to notice a need in me and capitalized on it. But I do think that he cared for me. I do think that John Manard loved me to the best of his ability to love anybody at that time. Because he was pretty broken, too.”
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