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Ala. inmate escapes after assault, carjack
By Robert K. Gordon and Toraine Norris
The Birmingham News
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Birmingham police captured suspected killer and courthouse escapee Lakendall Sims about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday near Lipscomb, just inside the Birmingham city limits after more than a day on the run.
He was arrested without incident in a wooded area underneath an abandoned train trestle in the 5300 block of Jefferson Avenue Southwest, authorities said. A tipster called Birmingham police after seeing Sims at a vacant house nearby.
An officer from Birmingham’s West Precinct found the escapee sitting in the woods, his head down, said Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale.
The .45 semi-automatic pistol Sims took from a bailiff that police say he overpowered Tuesday lay on the ground six feet away.
“Sims gave up right there,” Hale said.
“He was tired. He was haggard. We kept the pressure on him.”
Sims was being held in the Jefferson County Jail in Bessemer.
U.S. Marshal deputies, Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies and Bessemer police searched neighborhoods in Lipscomb and Bessemer all day Wednesday, the day after Sims escaped from the Jefferson County Courthouse in Bessemer.
Sims, 20, a convicted rapist charged in two capital murders, escaped while on his way to a hearing. Police say he overpowered a bailiff and took the bailiff’s handgun.
“It’s a huge relief,” said Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Lt. Randy Christian said. “I don’t think there’s a more dangerous guy out there than Sims. We’re glad to get him off the streets.”
Earlier Wednesday, John Tindle, one of Sims’ lawyers, said he was fearful of the outcome of the escape.
“I’m glad it was without incident and that no one got hurt,” he said.
Another defense lawyer, David Hobdy, said Sims gave no indication that he would try anything Tuesday.
“We had a conversation, we talked strategy,” Hobdy said. “We were getting prepared. I’m totally shocked.”
Sims was set to go on trial Monday for capital murder in a 2007 shooting. The trial ended up being postponed Wednesday because a forensics witness for the state was unavailable. No new trial date has been set.
In their efforts to capture Sims, deputies followed leads across the western part of the county.
Authorities chased a man believed to have been Sims on Tuesday night before losing him in the woods.
At one point Wednesday, police surrounded a Lipscomb house thought to belong to a Sims relative in the 5600 block of Avenue G. Bessemer police also called out all available units to search vacant apartments in the 3300 block of Dartmouth Avenue in their city after receiving an anonymous call.
Christian said Sims is believed to have broken into a Lipscomb woman’s home on Courtney Avenue some time between 3:30 and 8:45 p.m. Tuesday. Authorities believe he left under the cover of darkness, taking $11 and the woman’s cell phone with him.
Sims also took a change of clothes. Police issued a new description of him about midday Wednesday, saying he was believed to be wearing a dark shirt, dark pants and a dark baseball cap.
Sims was changing clothes behind a vacant powder-blue house at 5221 Jefferson Avenue when Robert Jones spotted him and called police.
“He was just sitting there, like nothing was wrong,” after he changed, said Jones.
Jones said Sims spotted a passing police car and darted for the woods.
The West Precinct patrol car apprehended him moments later.
Brownville residents said they suspected Sims had been in the area for some time. The chain lock on the door of an old storage building across from the wooded area had been loosened, neighbors said.
In June, Sims and three other men, dubbed the Lipscomb Four, were charged with capital murder in the May 2007 shooting death of a Lipscomb man. Sims, along with Tarquinne McCain, Travis Burns and James Pratt, were charged with shooting and robbing of Gabriel Alaniz, 21.
Authorities also charged the four with the 2007 shooting death of 19-year-old Mary Catherine Williams of Bessemer.
The four also are charged in the May 5 home invasion of a Lipscomb couple. The elderly man and woman were robbed of money and their car and were beaten in their home in the 5300 block of 15th Avenue, police said.
In another development, Bessemer police arrested Yvonne Ellis, the woman Sims carjacked Tuesday, on outstanding misdemeanor warrants.
Copyright 2008 The Birmingham News