FedEx driver faces charges after staging robbery hoax resulting in exhaustive manhunt, school lockdowns

About 50 law enforcement officers — from Sequoyah County Sheriff’s Office, Cherokee Nation Marshal Service, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, FBI, Sequoyah County Emergency Management and local fire departments — scoured the heavily wooded countryside Wednesday near Gans in an exhaustive manhunt for an armed suspect who reportedly robbed a FedEx truck, stole the truck and then abandoned the vehicle before fleeing on foot.

Although Sheriff Larry Lane said there was no immediate threat to students, teachers and staff, Gans Public Schools were locked down as a precautionary measure due to the proximity of the incident, and school officials asked parents not to go to the schools to pick up their children. Central Public Schools were subsequently also locked down.

The county — from law enforcement to school personnel to worried parents to anxious residents — was on high alert as authorities combed miles of rugged terrain between Gans and Brent and from U.S. 64 to the Arkansas River.

But after more than three hours of searching, which included use of drones for aerial surveillance as authorities employed all options available in the massive rural manhunt, the suspect could not be found.

That’s when Lane determined that the FedEx driver’s story wasn’t adding up.

Sheriff Larry Lane

“After further interviewing the driver and obtaining the inside vehicle video from the FedEx truck, we have concluded that the driver was lying and staged the incident,” Lane said.

The lockdowns at the schools were lifted about 2:30 p.m. to allow for dismissal as usual, and officers were released from the scene.

The FedEx driver has been arrested on charges that include filing a false report, Lane said.

“Investigators and deputies are extremely angry, and I am too,” Lane said. “They’ve done a lot of work, and there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on in a case like this.”

A report about 11 a.m. Monday that the FedEx driver was a victim of an armed robbery touched off an immediate response by multiple law enforcement agencies, and paralyzed normal activities at Gans and Central schools.

A FedEx truck, reported stolen during an armed robbery, was found near Old Mountain Road west of Gans. The FedEx driver told authorities the suspect fled on foot into a nearby wooded area.

Deputies who responded were told that a suspect — described by the FedEx driver as a 5’10” tall white male of medium build wearing a black shirt and orange basketball shorts — had commandeered the FedEx truck and driven away before abandoning the vehicle on Old Mountain Road west of Gans. The suspect, believed to have been armed with a gun, was then reported to have fled into the wooded area on foot.

But after law enforcement authorities reviewed video from the FedEx vehicle that showed there was no robbery, Lane concluded the FedEx driver was lying, and ended the monumental search and lifted the lockdowns.

Deputies at the scene said no packages in the FedEx truck were known to have been disturbed.

After initially posting on the school’s Facebook page about noon that “our students are safe and in no apparent danger,” Gans superintendent Regina Brannon subsequently posted at about 2:30 p.m. that “our area is clear and we are now released from lockdown and there is no potential danger. Our students’ safety is always our upmost concern.” School was released at the regular time.

After canceling the manhunt, Lane expressed his appreciation to those who assisted with the incident: deputies, volunteers, Cherokee Nation Marshal Service, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, FBI, Sequoyah County Emergency Management and local fire departments “for all of your assistance today. We had a great response with about 50 law enforcement officers quickly arriving on the scene.”