A Houston man who admitted to capital murder and was sentenced to half a century behind bars was allowed to walk free for one final weekend before starting his term, and instead of reporting to prison he disappeared. The decision to let a confessed killer remain out on bond after his sentencing has drawn sharp scrutiny, and it left the man at large for years rather than in a cell.
The choice fell to a visiting judge. According to the account, Judge James Anderson thought it was a good idea to give the defendant, LVO Mancibo, one last weekend of freedom. Observers questioned the logic almost immediately, with one noting that few people facing 50 years in prison would voluntarily turn themselves in once given the chance to run.
Mancibo did exactly what critics feared. The 28-year-old took his chances rather than surrendering, and instead of beginning his 50-year sentence he went on the run. By the account given, the admitted killer spent roughly two and a half years as a fugitive, drawing out a case that authorities had believed was finally resolved with his guilty plea.
The crime at the heart of the case dated back years. In 2017, Mancibo shot two teenage men in a vacant apartment at the Steeplechase apartment complex in northwest Harris County, an attack that led prosecutors to charge him with capital murder. It was a serious count that carried the potential for a lengthy sentence long before the eventual plea deal.
The road to that plea was marked by repeated failures of the bond system. After his arrest, Mancibo was released from jail on a bond set at $350,000. While out, he racked up at least five bond violation reports for failing to abide by his curfew, and he also picked up an assault charge, a pattern that pointed to a defendant who was not complying with the conditions of his release.
Even those violations did not keep him locked up. After Mancibo's bond was revoked twice, the amount was raised to $750,000, an increase meant to make release harder. Yet he was able to post that higher sum as well and walk out of jail again, a sequence that critics say should have ended long before he was ever given a weekend of freedom.
For now, the case remains unfinished, with the sentenced man still unaccounted for. In court documents, Judge Anderson has stated that he wants to be the presiding judge once Mancibo is captured, signaling that the legal fallout is not over. Whether that happens depends on authorities first tracking down a confessed killer who was handed 50 years and then simply did not show up.