FARMINGTON – Franklin County sheriff’s Detective Tom White said police have been taking heat from people upset that they were not personally notified of the search here last week for an accused child rapist and assault suspect from Massachusetts.

County residents thought police should have knocked on doors to tell them about escapee Anthony Flye, 39, of Swansea and Nantucket, Mass., who has ties to Franklin and Hancock counties, White said.

“But with any investigation, we don’t want the bad guys to figure out what’s going on,” he said, “so some things were not released to the public. I feel bad for folks who were upset.”

Apparently, Flye never came to Maine during his 13 days on the run.

Flye was captured Monday near New Bedford, Mass., as he was hitchhiking underneath a bridge on a highway. He is being held on $1 million cash bail at a Massachusetts prison on charges of sexual assault of a child and assault of a disabled senior citizen in that state.

He escaped from custody after he jumped over a balcony railing at a Massachusetts courthouse on March 25 and was taken to a hospital for treatment. He fled after police let him use the bathroom.

When the trail went cold for Bay State police, they reached out for help from counterparts in Maine, where they knew Flye had connections, White said.

On March 30, Franklin County sheriff detectives and Massachusetts police talked with Flye’s former employer, a Nantucket, Mass., contractor who was at his property in Maine, White said. There was no sign of Flye there, and information convinced them the search should be concentrated in Massachusetts.

Two days later, on April 1, the Sheriff’s Department, knowing Flye was most likely still in Massachusetts, issued a statement advising of the manhunt so anyone here who had contact with him might get word to him and cause him to stay in Massachusetts.

And that’s where he was found April 7.

“We were trying to keep him isolated,” White said.

, and wanted people that knew him in the area to know that local police were actively searching for him.