Antelope County Man Found Guilty Of Threatening Nurse

An Antelope County man was found guilty on Tuesday by a Lancaster County jury of making terroristic threats.

Just days before Jack Echols, 35, was scheduled to be released from the Lincoln Correctional Center, he told a nurse that he was going to kill her when he got out, according to Lancaster County court documents.

Facing up to three more years in prison and 18 months of post-release supervision, court documents show Echols will be sentenced on June 2.

Echols had been serving a two-year prison sentence handed down in Antelope County for a repeated violation of the Sex Offender Registry, according to district court documents.

On December 1, 2015, Echols said sexually inappropriate things to the nurse, according to court documents, asked her name and told her that he was going to cut her throat when he got out. When the nurse told him it is a crime to assault a health care worker, Echols said he didn’t care and repeated the threats. 

Benny Noordhoek, an investigator with the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, said three other prison employees witnessed the incident and saw Echols banging on his cell door, trying to get out.

A warrant was issued for his arrest on the new felony charge three days later, and when he was released from prison he was taken to the Lancaster County jail on the warrant, according to the Lincoln Journal-Star.