Eight inmates used part of a bed to chip through a wall and escape from a south Mississippi jail, the sheriff said Monday, but six had been recaptured by Monday afternoon.
Marion County Sheriff Berkley Hall said the breakout was discovered around 5:40 a.m. and he believes the escape was between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. The inmates apparently turned the bed piece into a tool and had been working on chipping away at the wall for some time.
"This didn't just happen overnight," he said. "This is something they've been working on."
Arkansas State troopers arrested three of the men around 1:30 p.m. in North Little Rock, Ark., after reports of a pickup truck being driven erratically on Interstate 40.
Troopers arrested Mickah S. Lott, 28, David L. Johnson Sr., 23, and Ricky Chadwick Roberts, 18, after the vehicle Lott was driving sideswiped three others. Authorities believe the truck was stolen along with a gun found in the vehicle.
After arresting Toney T. Clark, 21, earlier in the day near the Improve community, authorities captured Brandon Silas, 40, and John David Smith Jr., 18, in the same area. The community is 10 to 12 miles through the woods from the jail.
That left Derrick Rainey, 21, and Eric Ball, 20, still on the loose.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol, the Mississippi Department of Corrections and local law enforcement officers were participating in the search. Sheriff Hall said helicopters, K-9 and other local law enforcement agencies were on the scene.
Lott was serving a life sentence for a homicide in Simpson County. Smith was being held on capital murder charges in the November shooting death of Joe Von Stringer, 55, in Marion County.
