Associated Press
COLUMBIA, Miss. — Eight inmates used part of a bed to chip through a wall and escape from a south Mississippi jail, the sheriff said Monday, and seven of the men were still on the loose.
Marion County Sheriff Berkley Hall said the breakout was discovered around 5:40 a.m. and the sheriff believes the escape was between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. The inmates apparently turned the bed piece into a tool, and had been working on chipping away at the wall for some time, Hall said.
“This didn’t just happen overnight,” he said. “This is something they’ve been working on.”
The Highway Patrol, the Mississippi Department of Corrections and local law enforcement officers were participating in the search. Hall said helicopters, K-9 and other local law enforcement agencies were on the scene.
Inmate Toney T. Clark, 21, of Lumberton, was caught several hours after the escape near the Improve community, about 10 miles northeast of Columbia, and returned to the jail, Hall said. Clark was arrested Oct. 4 and charged with resisting arrest, destroying city property, simple assault on police officer and disorderly conduct.
The other escaped inmates were identified as John David Smith Jr., 18; Mickah Lott, 28; Derrick Rainey, 21; David L. Johnson Jr., 23; Brandon Silas, 28; Ricky Chadwick Roberts, 18; and Eric Ball, 20.
Smith was being held on capital murder charges in the November shooting death of Joe Von Stringer, 55, in Marion County. Lott was serving a life sentence for a murder in Simpson County.