Two of four inmates who escaped from an Oklahoma jail were recaptured on Monday.
Dylan Ray Three Irons, 21, Prime Brown, 23, Triston Cheadle, 32, and Anthony Mendonca, 24, managed to escape from Caddo County Detention Center in Anadarko, Oklahoma.
On Sunday, the men found an escape route and acted. According to CNN, the four inmates pried open a maintenance hatch by breaking a lock above a shower head. They proceeded to crawl 30 feet through a narrow pipe chase until they reached a cement wall. When they reached said wall, they knocked out cement blocks that brought them to an unlocked door that led to outside the jail.
Sheriff Gene Cain said, “All they had to do was push the door and walk out because it’s not in the jail.” Witnesses reported seeing men in orange jumpsuits around 2:40 am local time. That night, three guards had been on duty and were patrolling about 200 inmates according to NBC News.
The two who were recaptured, Three Irons and Brown, were found at the Frisco Stop convenience store in Chickasha a day after escaping. Though the store’s employees did not recognize the two as escaped prisoners, police were on the scene immediately. An employee, Linda Harley, reports that, “As soon as they walked out, the cops were there. When they saw the police, one of the guys just stood still and dropped his stuff on the ground.”
Three of the four men, all but Cheadle, were already sentenced and were awaiting transfer to the state Department of Corrections. According to Fox News, Cheadle was awaiting his trial on a federal gun charge after committing a robbery with a firearm. Mendonca was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and resisting arrest. Three Irons was convicted of a probation violation, and Brown was guilty of a second-degree burglary. Cheadle was also charged with methamphetamine possession.
NBC News reports that “prison officials knew that some of the hatches in the two-year-old facility were not secured and were in the process of welding them shut. All but two of the hatches had been tended to when the escape occurred.” In the two years since the center has opened, there have been no other escapes.