Sometimes the news brings you truth that is stranger than fiction. And I am trying to figure out how (and why) a group of Holmes County, Miss., inmates managed to break out of a local jail and then steal from a store, only to escort themselves back behind bars.
According to Mississippi News Now, the inmates, identified as Levontaye Ellington, Travis Baker, Maurice Robertson and Jacquiez Williams, all escaped from the Holmes-Humphreys County Regional Correctional Facility and managed to jump the fence of the jail unnoticed. The group then made their way to a Dollar General located less than a mile away and had a little party, filling their pockets with anything they could grab, authorities say.
“They stole cigarettes, cigarette lighters, phones and just items they felt they could sell in jail,” Lexington Police Chief Robert Kirklin told the news station.
However, after stuffing their pockets, instead of making a run for it, the men decided to sneak back into the jail, again accomplishing the feat without being noticed.
Williams was even bonded out of jail briefly on another charge before authorities discovered what had happened.
“You already in jail, but you want to break out and break back in?” the chief said. “That is just something. I heard it all.”
Me too, Chief, me too.
I am curious, though. Do they get credit for being courteous enough to sneak back in so that officers wouldn’t have to dedicate time or resources to finding them?
As for the facility itself, which seems to have a few holes in its security, Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said that his team is working to make sure that security is beefed up and a repeat of this does not happen.
Some of the items that were stolen were actually recovered, and the four inmates have now been slapped with additional charges of commercial burglary.
Read more at Mississippi News Now.