ATLANTA (AP) — The U.S. Marshals Service said Friday that a convicted killer who was mistakenly released from a Georgia jail has been caught two weeks later in Florida — ending days of anxiety for the victim's family outside Orlando who feared he might harm them over their role in the trial.
Kathan Guzman, 22, was supposed to spend the rest of his life in prison after admitting he strangled his girlfriend, 19-year-old Delila Grayson, who was found dead in a bathtub in August 2022, Clayton County Sheriff Levon Allen told WSB-TV.
However, jail workers in the county south of Atlanta mistakenly released Guzman late last month because they didn’t read paperwork carefully, failing to see that he’d been convicted of murder and assault by strangulation, the sheriff said. The sheriff’s office has not said whether any jail employees are facing disciplinary actions over the release.
Guzman told someone after being freed that “God is good” and he believed his release was the result of a higher power, the sheriff told WSB.
The victim's mother, Christina Grayson, wasn’t told her daughter’s murderer was on the loose until Tuesday, after the district attorney learned of it, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
“I feel like I’m a sitting duck,” Grayson told WFTV-TV in Orlando.
Her family was sleeping in shifts so that someone was awake at all times, she told the broadcaster, and deputies in Osceola County patrolled her neighborhood as the search continued.
Guzman was arrested “without incident” Friday at a residence in Ocoee, near Orlando, the U.S. Marshals Service said. Booking records showed he was being held in the Orange County Jail.
“Today we tracked him down and got him in custody,” said Michael Sonethavilay, deputy commander of the agency's Florida/Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force.
The agency's Southeast Regional Task Force, based in Atlanta, “did some digging and found some information that he may be in Florida,” Sonethavilay said. They got in touch with the Florida task force, which worked with the Orange County Sheriff's Office and picked him up.
On Tuesday, the Georgia Office of Victim Services had discovered it couldn't locate Guzman in the corrections system and notified the prosecutor's office, Clayton County District Attorney Tasha Mosley said in a statement. Mosley said her employees then checked the jail's computer system, which appeared to show Guzman had been let go, so they immediately notified the sheriff.
“All appropriate paperwork was sent to the appropriate people. I have no idea why they released this man,” Mosley told the Atlanta newspaper. “We are just as disappointed and pissed off as everybody else.”
As of Friday morning, the Clayton County sheriff’s office had not issued any public notifications about the mistaken release or Guzman's possible whereabouts. A sheriff's spokesman told The Associated Press that the agency was preparing a statement that would be sent to residents through the “Nixle” alert system, which would also include a photo of Guzman.
Jeff Martin, The Associated Press
