One surrenders, one found in house

Two prisoners who escaped from local and state authorities are back in custody after one turned himself in Wednesday night and the other was captured three hours later.

A 9-hour manhunt for an inmate who escaped the Warren County Jail ended when 17-year-old James Robert Reynolds surrendered to Sheriff Martin Pace.

&#8220At about 6:45 p.m., accompanied by his mother and another family member, he turned himself in to me at the county jail,” Pace said. &#8220We were literally under houses still looking for him when I received a call that I needed to meet him at the jail.”

The search that included Vicksburg police as well as sheriff’s deputies began at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday when Reynolds, 17, 111 South Drive, broke and ran for the elevator of the jail during a routine movement of inmates from cell blocks to the recreation room on the second floor.

Pace said Reynolds gained access to the elevator, which should have been locked down, went to the basement, where trusties were washing cars, and ran out of the basement door.

An internal investigation has been launched to determine how security protocol was breached, Pace said.

&#8220The internal portion of this investigation continues as to how those two guards allowed him to have access to the elevator,” he said. &#8220If this is human error, appropriate disciplinary action will be taken.”

Access to the elevator should not have been obtained, he said.

&#8220The recreation room is on the second floor, and prisoners were led by two officers from the cell block into the recreation area,” Pace said. &#8220They have to walk in front of an elevator, but it is supposed to be locked down when prisoners are escorted. Apparently, it was not locked down. That absolutely should never have happened.”

Within two minutes of the escape being reported, authorities, with a K-9 unit from Delta, began searching an area from Grove Street south to Marcus Bottom. They continued Wednesday night to search streets near Marcus Bottom, where friends and relatives of Reynolds live, before he returned to the jail.

Pace said he does not believe relatives helped Reynolds avoid authorities.

Reynolds had been indicted Thursday for second-degree arson in a fire set to bedding in the jail July 3.

The fire was set to two mattresses and a blanket about 8 p.m. Three jail inmates were taken to River Region Medical Center, where they were treated and released for smoke inhalation. They were among 66 inmates evacuated from the second floor of the jail, where the fire was set.

He also has been indicted for three armed robberies.

In the second Wednesday capture, a Vicksburg man who had left a work detail with the Mississippi Department of Corrections two days earlier was captured in an abandoned house at 500 Dabney St. after the Vicksburg Police Department received several calls from people claiming they had seen or made contact with 51-year-old Larry &#8220Chopper” Ellis.

&#8220At about 6 p.m. last night, I received three or four calls about people who had made contact with him here in Vicksburg,” Sgt. Tom Wilson of the Vicksburg Police Department said. &#8220I called for assistance from the U.S. Marshal’s Service Fugitive Task Force, Mississippi Department of Corrections and a Hinds County K-9 unit, and we started searching for him in an area in south Vicksburg where we believed we had him cornered.”

Wilson said authorities found Ellis at 10:45 p.m. after searching 10 houses. He was arrested without incident and taken to the Warren County Jail before being transferred to Jefferson County.

&#8220We are extremely pleased that inmate Ellis has been apprehended,” Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Christopher Epps said.

Ellis, who was serving a 25-year sentence for escape, burglary and larceny, faces an additional 5-year sentence if convicted of escape.