Sorry for the long reply. I hate working on the car when the temps are in the 90s.
Anyway, I found the problem. The switch on the shifter is bad. About a month ago some friends and I were going to a baseball game and coffee was spilled right on the shifter and shortly after it went wonky. Big surprise.
I referred to the circuit diagrams (I have the FSM/ESM) and figured I should test the console first then work my way up to the switch. It's so intermittent though but I did get it to not release the key on the second try.
BTW, getting a backprobe kit has unbelievable value for testing like this. They're a powerful tool when used with the electrical service manual. Attached a pic.
It's a simple circuit: fused power runs to the park switch in the console then goes out to the steering column lock release solenoid. Attached a picture.
I was able to duplicate the testing and I'm positive the switch is bad. The test light in the picture should be on when the park switch is working. When it fails, it didn't light. To bypass it as a test, all I did was jumper the red and yellow clips together to bypass the switch and the ignition key came out.
I was going to upload a picture but I can't figure out how. Imgur looks needlessly confusing for what I need it to do. Just showing the testing process.
