'Miscommunication' let Jacqmain leave

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) - A spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Corrections said it was a miscommunication between two local mental health facilities that resulted in the slow reporting of an escaped parolee who is now wanted for allegedly stabbing an Indianapolis man to death in Walker on Wednesday.

Jack Jacqmain is sought for the stabbing death of Mark Moore, a 31-year-old Indianapolis man, at the Motel 6 on 3 Mile. Jacqmain, 52, is thought to be armed and dangerous.

Surveillance photos of Jacqmain from Wednesday night were released by authorities on Friday.

Investigators said Jacqmain is a smoker who prefers Swisher Sweets and he often wears sunglasses. He is familiar with the trucking business and he likes prostitutes.

At the time of the crime, police said, he was wearing a black-t-shirt, jean shorts and dark shoes, and carried a black backpack. He may have had a change of clothes involving a brown leather coat, black pants and tan work boots.

John Cordell, spokesperson for the Michigan DOC, said Jacqmain was released from prison in May 2009. He was serving time for a 1992 Grand Rapids bank robbery.

Jacqmain had been on parole for more than a year, when he violated that parole during a routine check on July 15. Cordell said Jacqmain had a small pocketknife on him, and was arrested and taken to the Kent County jail. Once there, it was determined that because of Jacqmain's mental state, he would have to be held by a Kent County mental health facility.

Jacqmain was transferred to a mental health facility under low supervision. He was later transferred to a second facility, which Cordell described as a "step down" facility, where patients are allowed to come and go as they please in some instances.

Cordell said it was during the transfer from the first facility to the second that Jacqmain's status as a parole violator was inadvertantly lost.

Because of the lack of that label, Cordell told 24 Hour News 8, officials at the second mental health facility did not report to the DOC that Jacqmain had left until five days after he walked away. That's when someone from the DOC inquired with the facility about his whereabouts.

Guests at the Motel 6 in Walker said Jacqmain checked in the day he walked away from the second facility and had been staying at the motel for about a week when he "snapped."

Police say Jacqmain stabbed Moore to death, adding the men had no relationship before the unprovoked attack. Witnesses to the stabbing said Jacqmain was throwing things off his balcony which hit Moore as he walked by. The interaction was the beginning of what would become the deadly attack, according to witnesses who did not want to be identified.

Witnesses say Moore was in West Michigan on business and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

24 Hour News 8 will continue to follow this story.