Second Mississippi escapee captured after nearly 3 weeks at large
Mississippi authorities say they have captured the second of two escapees who broke out of a detention facility in May.
“Escapee-Joseph Spring was captured this morning by HCSO and the US Marshals Fugitive Task Force following a brief vehicle encounter in the west Jackson area,” Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones said in a tweet Saturday.
Spring and Michael Lewis, both 31, went missing from the Raymond Detention Center, about 15 miles west of Jackson, on May 29. Four men had escaped the same center the month before.
A deputy discovered Spring and Lewis’s escape after noticing items and “what appeared to be blood” near the facility’s outer perimeter fence and conducting a headcount, Jones told a news conference at the time.
“We believe that they were able to get access to an air duct within the facility, which led to the exterior of the facility where they were able to go over a fence and escape,” Jones said.
He said the construction of the “poorly built” center was helping prisoners to escape.
Later on May 29, the sheriff tweeted that Lewis had been captured and faced additional escape charges.
Spring, who had been at the facility since November, was being held on probation and parole violations and burglary, Jones told reporters on May 29.
Lewis had been in the facility since December and was being held on charges related to DUI, possession of marijuana, felony fleeing and convicted felon in possession of a firearm, among others, he said. The men were also believed to have holds with other agencies for their arrests, the sheriff added.
Sheriff says center has faced ongoing construction issues
Spring and Lewis’s escape came just over a month after the escape of four other men who breached the same facility and sparked a dayslong manhunt.
Authorities believe that group climbed onto the roof, camped there, and left the property at different times, the sheriff has said.
Two of those escapees were found dead, in Carthage, Mississippi, and New Orleans, while the other two were captured – one in Spring Valley, Texas, and the other at a residence in Crystal Springs, Mississippi.
In his May 29 news conference, Jones apologized to the Hinds County community for the public safety breach.
The sheriff said the detention facility had faced issues since its inception, explaining that it was “poorly built” and had continued to deteriorate since then.
“Detainees are finding a way to damage the physical plant itself to be able to aid them with escaping the facility,” Jones said.
A new detention center is being built, he said, but there are urgent issues with the existing one that need to be fixed, he said, adding that he’s working to address staffing problems on top of the physical issues.
CNN’s Isabel Rosales and Susannah Cullinane contributed to this report.
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