Bibb County sheriff’s deputy fired for his role in October jailbreak when 4 inmates escaped

This story has been updated

A Bibb County sheriff’s deputy was fired Wednesday for his role in an October jailbreak that led to four inmates going on the run, the sheriff’s office announced.

Travaris Freeman, a jailer who had worked for the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office since June 2020, was fired for “breach of security” after he “failed to maintain the security of the jail,” according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.

Freeman violated multiple rules for jailers including using a flashlight during checks and not relying on closed-circuit security cameras during cell checks, the release read. The policy Freeman failed to follow also says a jailer should check whether the inmate is breathing.

The sheriff’s office said Freeman was fired for unsatisfactory performance and “unbecoming conduct.” It was unclear exactly what Freeman was doing during the jailbreak.

Freeman is the first employee of the sheriff’s office to be fired after the jailbreak, which happened Oct. 16 when four inmates fled from the jail by prying open a window and escaping through a hole cut in a fence.

The inmates — Joey Fournier, 52; Marc Kerry Anderson, 24; Johnifer Dernard Barnwell, 37, and Chavis Demaryo Stokes, 29 — were caught over the course of the next month. The last fugitive, Fournier, was caught Nov. 18 in Atlanta.

The escape

The jailbreak unfolded in the wee hours of Oct. 16, with the inmates missing for roughly three hours before the sheriff’s office knew. Investigators unraveled several threads from there, the earliest and most compelling of which revolved around a possible escape car.

A blue Dodge Challenger, seen on video during the jailbreak, was named as a car of interest by the sheriff’s office. The car did not help the inmates drive away after the jailbreak, the sheriff’s office said, but did provide the tools the four escapees used to cut through the fence outside the jail.

As the manhunt continued, more information about the inmates emerged. Fournier had been in the jail for murder charges, while Barnwell was in the jail awaiting transfer after he’d been convicted of federal drug charges.

The FBI got involved in the search for Barnwell, while other agencies including the GBI and U.S. Marshal’s Southeastern Regional Fugitive Task Force joined the hunt for all the escapees. Together, the agencies put up more than $73,000 of reward money for information leading to the inmates.

The first break in the case came four days later when deputies recovered the Dodge Challenger, which was found in a Kroger parking lot in east Macon. Then, a week after the escape on Oct. 23, the sheriff’s office and U.S. marshals found a lead that would later prove important.

The sheriff’s office used a tip to find a man they thought could help them find the escapees at an apartment complex on Vineville Avenue in Macon. When deputies and U.S. Marshals arrived to question and arrest the man, identified as Christian Williams, 23, he shot himself, Sheriff David Davis said after the standoff.

Williams died the next day at a local hospital, but it turns out the leads would help authorities track down the inmates.

The arrests

U.S. marshals caught the first inmate in Montezuma, Georgia. Chavis Stokes was arrested October 26 after authorities tracked him south of Macon.

The arrest began a stretch that lasted just less than a month where the inmates and suspects in the jailbreak were arrested in swaths, the sheriff’s office said later.

“It was a chain,” Davis told the Macon Telegraph after a November press conference about the arrests. “You find one thing, and then another thing, and another. We were able to find these people connected to it, and it started going.”

Anderson was captured next in North Atlanta the first week of November after a woman ordered GrubHub for him that revealed the location of his apartment, the sheriff’s office said. Barnwell was next, tracked down thanks to cars driven by two Macon women across the South Carolina border that were tracked via traffic cameras.

Fournier, the final inmate to be arrested, turned himself in after spending time in a homeless encampment in Stockbridge, the sheriff said. The sheriff’s office said they arrested five accomplices by the time the investigation ended, as well as six gang members connected to the escapees that had no role in the jailbreak.