Police have announced that an inmate has escaped from a South Carolina prison, for the second time, using wire cutters dropped from a drone, according to the New York Times.
Jimmy Causey, 46, allegedly used wire cutters to break through a fence at the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville on Tuesday. The inmate also placed a papier-mâché dummy in his bed, which gave him an 18-hour window to flee, according to WLTX.
On Friday, Department of Public Safety agents found Causey asleep in a Texas motel room with a shotgun and pistol next to the bed. Authorities seized the weapons and $46,000 in cash upon his arrest.
State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel also stated that Causey had four cell phones and an ID card in his possession, as reported by The Dallas Morning News.
Causey was sentenced to life in prison in 2004 for invading the home of Jack Swirling, a defense attorney who represented him in a previous case. WCSC reported that Swirling and his family were held at gunpoint and tied up with duct tape.
This isn’t the first time the 46-year-old escaped from a maximum-security prison. In 2005, Causey and a fellow inmate used heads made out of toilet paper to trick guards during a prison count. From there, the pair escaped from the Columbia facility in a garbage truck. The New York Times reported that they were caught two days later, after placing a pizza order from their motel.
CAPTURED: Escaped inmate Jimmy Causey was apprehended and is no longer at large pic.twitter.com/poCMPk1Dmj
— SC Dept. Corrections (@SCDCNews) July 7, 2017
With Causey in custody, authorities say they plan to find the person or persons who assisted him. Corrections Director Bryan Stirling said the man used a cell phone to get help from the outside.
“If someone leaves the South Carolina Department of Corrections and tries to escape, we will hunt them down and look for them until we find them,” Stirling said. “They will not be able to sleep or close their eyes and feel comfortable that they’ve gotten away because we will not stop like you saw this week.”
[Featured Image: South Carolina Department of Corrections]
