Police nab all 5 escaped Missouri inmates, including 3 sex offenders

Missouri police tracked down and caught five prisoners, including three sex offenders, who made a daring jailbreak last week, stealing a car and brazenly driving away from the St. Francois County Detention Center.

(Video Credit: NBC News)

The five men made the daring escape at approximately 7 pm the night they got away, according to Fox News. They entered a secured cell and then “made their way through a secured door by use of force.”

In a statement, St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department Chief Deputy Gregory Armstrong said it was believed the inmates accessed the detention center’s roof through a plumbing chase, a section of a building that houses pipes and vents.

At that point, they ditched their orange jail clothing and were seen on surveillance cameras “wearing white thermal leggings, white boxer and/or basketball shorts and white t-shirts,” while “Tucker was wearing a black t-shirt.”

Two of the men can be seen going off to steal the car they fled in. They drove it back to the entrance and picked up their three comrades before taking off.

(Video Credit: KSDK News)

The police made the announcement on Saturday that they had caught one prisoner in Missouri and four others in Ohio.

Lajuan Tucker, 37, and Dakota Pace, 26, were arrested in Butler County, Ohio, north of Cincinnati. Pace and Tucker are being held in the Butler County Jail in Ohio, along with Kelly McSean, 52, and Aaron Sebastian, 30.

Officials stated that troopers from the patrol’s Hamilton post stopped a Scion TC around 9:30 pm after observing a traffic violation on the State Route 4 bypass at State Route 129 in Fairfield Township, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Police approached the vehicle and began talking with the occupants, officials said in a press release.

“While troopers were talking with them, the vehicle fled the scene and a short pursuit ensued,” the release recounted.

The four occupants fled on foot and two of them were quickly taken into custody, officials asserted.

Law enforcement began searching the area for the two remaining suspects.

West Chester police located and apprehended one of the suspects in West Chester Township around 2:15 a.m. on Saturday, the release states. The last suspect was taken into custody by deputies from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office just after 9 a.m.

Michael Wilkins, 42, was arrested by the Poplar Bluff Police Department at a second-hand retail store in Missouri.

The sheriff’s department reported that investigators began focusing on the Poplar Bluff area Thursday morning after a tip that a person matching Wilkins’ description was seen at a bar there. Witnesses said the man entered the bar alone on Wednesday evening and basically kept to himself, only drinking water according to KSDK.

He was evidently behaving strangely. Witnesses called it in after seeing news reports Thursday morning. Police positively identified him using surveillance video from the bar.

Wilkins was taken into custody without incident on Friday morning, the sheriff’s office said.

“As of this morning, all escaped inmates have been located and taken into custody. While Wilkins was captured in Missouri, Pace, Tucker, McSean, and Sebastian were located hours later in Ohio,” the department wrote on Facebook.

“The St. Francois County Sheriff’s Department will continue to work with the United States Marshals Service until all inmates are returned back to the Detention Center,” the department added.

Tucker, Sebastian, and McSean are known sex offenders who are “being held for crimes committed while confined in the Missouri Department of Corrections Sexual Offender Treatment Center,” the sheriff’s department noted. “Dakota Pace and Michael Wilkins were being held on felony warrants.”

Tucker was charged with raping a 12-year-old girl. McSean was being held for sexually assaulting a 39-year-old woman. It’s unknown currently exactly what Sebastian did.

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