Fugitive re-arrested in W. Va. after escaping from Columbus hospital
State troopers in West Virginia on Sunday night arrested a fugitive wanted in a shootout with police in Bucyrus, Ohio, who had escaped from a Columbus mental health hospital last week.
Jacob Davidson, 38, escaped from Twin Valley Behavioral Health Hospital on Columbus' West Side on Thursday, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which holds jurisdiction over Twin Valley. The highway patrol told WBNS-10TV that Davidson exited through a window.
He was re-arrested on Sunday at around 10:30 p.m. in Chapmanville, West Virginia, and is being held in the state's Southwestern Regional Jail awaiting extradition to Ohio, according to the West Virginia State Troopers’ office.
Davidson had earlier been arrested on Nov. 11 after Crawford County and Morrow County sheriff’s offices responded to shooting incidents in which one person was injured, according to a sheriff's office news release. Officers pursued Davidson in a vehicle chase and exchange gunfire with him before arresting him.
Davidson was indicted by a grand jury on Nov. 15 on charges of felonious assault, a first-degree felony; disrupting public services, a fourth-degree felony; improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle, a fourth-degree felony; and discharging a firearm on or near prohibited premises, a third-degree felony, according to records from the Crawford County Common Pleas Court clerk's website.
Davidson had been transferred from the Crawford County Jail to Twin Valley in Columbus on Dec. 20.
Peter Gill covers immigration and new American communities for The Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America here:bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.
pgill@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Jacob Davidson re-arrested after escaping from Columbus hospital
