Jailbreak after US prisoners chip away weak concrete wall

Key Highlights

• It wasn’t until five months later – after the discovery of the escape crime scene with a message that read “To Easy LoL” and a search spanning multiple states – that all 10 inmates were recaptured. Wednesday morning’s escape, which took place at the St Landry parish jail in the state’s south-west, involved three inmates.
• Sheriff Bobby J Guidroz, who oversees the jail in Opelousas, about 130 miles (209km) north-west of New Orleans, said the “inmates discovered a degrading part of an upper wall area and over time removed the mortar allowing them to remove concrete blocks and provide their exit”. The inmates then used “sheets and other items” to scale the outer wall and “drop on to” the first floor roof before lowering themselves to the ground, Guidroz said. Additional details about the escape were not immediately available.
• Guidroz said it would be investigated internally.‘Devil in the Ozarks’ spent months planning Arkansas prison escape – reportRead moreThe sheriff’s office identified the two escaped inmates still on the loose as Keith Eli, 24, of Opelousas, who was facing a second-degree attempted murder charge, and Johnathan Jevon Joseph, 24, of Opelousas, who was facing several charges including principal to first-degree rape. The third escapee, Joseph Allen Harrington, 26, of Melville, who faced several felony charges, including home invasion, killed himself after he was found, Port Barre police chief Deon Boudreaux said.
• After a tipster who recognised Harrington told police on Thursday that he was seen pushing a black e-bike, an officer spotted the bike at a nearby home.
• Police used a loudspeaker to urge Harrington to come out and later heard a gunshot.