THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn. — According to new charges filed Wednesday in Pennington County, a man suspected of brutally killing his wife in 2021 made an attempt to escape from county jail last month.
Court records say 45-year-old Eric Reinbold assaulted corrections officers while trying to make his escape on June 4. He now faces first- and second-degree assault charges, in addition to one felony count of attempting to escape from custody.
Reinbold has been serving time in the Pennington County Jail on second-degree murder charges after admitting to stabbing his wife to death in northern Minnesota in July of last year.
According to new charging documents, Reinbold is accused of attacking a corrections officer (CO) as she distributed over-the-counter medications to inmates. The criminal complaint says Reinbold came around the side of the officer's medication cart, grabbed her shirt and eventually pushed her to the concrete floor, where she says she hit the back of her head, throwing her glasses three to four feet from her body.
The complaint goes on to say Reinbold then began dragging the officer across the floor until another corrections officer approached him. That's when, according to prosecutors, Reinbold started to confront both officers. As the male CO broke Reinbold's grasp on the female officer, she proceeded to fall backwards onto her hip.
The documents allege Reinbold then demanded the male CO open the jail's interior door, and shoved him to the floor. The complaint says the officer insisted he was not able to open the door because he "couldn't feel his legs." That's when Reinbold allegedly ripped the CO's badge from his uniform and attempted to open the door himself.
When the badge didn't work, Reinbold apparently stood over the male CO, holding a white colored pencil to his throat as a weapon and continuing to demand he open the door.
Another CO, who said she heard the female CO's calls for help at the onset of the altercation, was able to locate both parties and subsequently unholstered her Taser and tried unsuccessfully to verbally de-escalate the situation, according to court documents. The complaint says the officer then deployed her Taser at Reinbold's chest, but because of the amount of clothing he was wearing, it was not fully effective.
As more tussling ensued between the officers and Reinbold, court documents say Reinbold attempted to take the officer's Taser out of her hand, but failed. That's when, according to charging documents, the officer was able to use the Taser with the spent cartridge removed to Drive Stun Reinbold near his ribs.
As Reinbold became briefly incapacitated, he was handcuffed.
The complaint states that the two officers who experienced the bulk of the altercation with Reinbold were evaluated at a local hospital.
Following the event, Pennington County Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to the jail, where in Reinbold's cell, they allegedly found a "roll" — a makeshift vessel made from a pillowcase — containing a towel, two Gatorade bottles filled with a clear liquid, three Snickers candy bars, a packet of Bacitracin ointment and a tube of antifungal cream.
The complaint says Reinbold's entire interaction with corrections officers was captured by the jail's surveillance system.
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