All credit to the NH Reddit community. Glad I thought to post here.

He must've been suffering from meth paranoia because there were 100 things he could have done differently that would have been better options than sawing off his monitor anklet and running into the woods. He lost his job and his place to live within days of each other. I don't know if he was high or not but his last texts to me were that he was in serious danger and needed to flee. He wasn't in danger. He just needed help paying his rent and to communicate w his parole officer. He panicked and fled and now he will have to sit in jail.