Apparently, there have been a whole lot of escapes from the Lauderdale County Alabama Jail. This is just from a quick Google search that is by no means complete (not to be confused with the Lauderdale County Mississippi Jail or Lauderdale County Tennessee Jail):
Oct. 2011 escape
Lauderdale County officials are searching for an escaped inmate.
www.waff.com
September 2012- FOUR inmates escape
According to Sheriff Ronnie Willis, the men climbed through an air vent in the roof to get out. Willis says once the men got on the roof, then jumped a fence where they got in a vehicle. He believes the person in the vehicle helped the men escape.
www.al.com
June 2013 escape
The police chief said officers had probable cause to search the home on an unrelated matter and found Crowden hiding in a closet. Officers recognized him as an escapee even though he tried giving them a false name, WHNT reports.
www.al.com
October 2015- This guy escaped twice in three months
Aaron Heath Hamilton, 41, was doing maintenance work at the courthouse when he fled in a county truck Wednesday afternoon. Lt. Brad Potts said inmates are regularly used for this type of work.
www.al.com
February 2017 escape
Although Kenneth Dewayne Coker, 29, of Florence, isn't believed to be dangerous, authorities want him back behind bars to face theft and drug charges, Sheriff Rick Singleton said.
www.al.com
December 2017 escape
Christopher Kilpatrick is back in custody.
www.al.com
The history of escapes from the Lauderdale County Jail goes back decades:
- September 1963:
four inmates at the Lauderdale County Jail descended from the second floor of the jail to freedom using a rope made out of sheets. The men had apparently sawed out a piece of sheet metal on the cell block and cut two bars out of a second-story window.
- July 1971:
four men managed to escape from the Lauderdale County Jail by knocking a hole in the wall. It is unclear when the men were recaptured, although one of the escaped inmates, Terry Ray Taylor — who was later sentenced to three years for grand larceny, robbery, and concealing stolen property —
escaped from the Draper Correctional Center in 1973.
- 1973: Four more inmates
broke out of the jail after striking a guard serving coffee to one of the prisoners in the head. After the inmate who delivered the blow proceeded to use the guard’s keys to open all of the cell doors on the floor, three more prisoners joined in the escape. One of the four men, 18-year-old Jerry Wayne Fish, was charged with
first-degree murder in the death of a service station attendant during an armed robbery and was later sentenced to life in prison plus ten years.
- May 1975: Charles Balentine, another inmate charged with first-degree murder, escaped from the jail with six other men in May 1975 using the
exact same method as was used in the 1971 escape — cutting a hole in the wall and descending to the ground using a makeshift sheet rope. While four of the inmates were
apprehended without incident within a matter of hours, Balentine managed to evade authorities for three days. When he was eventually located, officers found him
inside a vehicle with a shotgun, though he also surrendered peacefully.
- September 1978: yet another accused murderer was able to escape from the jail. Jerry Pounders, who was being held on a first-degree murder charge, escaped alongside seven other inmates by
ascending through a vent to the courthouse roof and climbing down a tree. Two of the inmates were
recaptured the following day after they were found near Old Salem Church in Lauderdale County.
- February 1979: Jerry Pounders
broke out of the jail again with three other men in the exact same manner.
- February 1990: Dale Ray Pounders
attempted to escape in the early hours of the morning on February 13 by brandishing a pocket knife, but was evidently unsuccessful.
- October 1990: Dale Ray Pounders, along with inmate Donald Ralph Jones and death row inmate Tommy Lee Hamilton, who was in the county jail while appealing his sentence,
grabbed a deputy’s gun and forced the deputy and a jail officer into the courthouse elevator before making their way to freedom. The trio was apprehended roughly ten minutes after the escape when they were spotted by Florence police deputies at a nearby pharmacy.
- November 2002: Jailers
mistakenly released Robert Eric Williams, a 22-year-old man suspected in two attempted murder cases, in 2002. Police investigators speculated that the jail staff thought that investigators were finished with Williams after they returned him to his cell following questioning and released him. The mishap set off a month-long manhunt for the suspect, who had previously held a gun to an acquaintance’s head when he was released on bond the month prior on the first attempted murder charge. Unable to locate Williams, the Florence Police Department requested the assistance of the FBI in apprehending the fugitive. After an FBI agent based in Florence received a tip as to Williams’ whereabouts, local officers were able to locate and arrest Williams without incident.
- October 2012: Four men––Wesley Lee Gibson, Damien Lee Nix, Ricky Dewayne Lawson, and Robert Lee Brown––
escaped by reportedly climbing through an air-conditioning duct to reach the roof of the jail before hopping a fence. Lawson’s father, Ernest Earl Lawson, lent his son, Brown, and Gibson his red truck to aid in their escape. He also provided them with
money. Nix was
arrested the following day inside a residence on East Limestone Street in Florence, according to Sheriff Willis. Gibson evidently managed to create more distance between himself and the facility––he was apprehended in a church in Navarre, FL, southeast of Pensacola. The red truck belonging to Lawson’s father was found in the parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart.
- March 2015: Michael Prater, an inmate at the Lauderdale County Jail, was mistakenly released on March 19, 2015 due to a clerical error, prompting an internal investigation. He had been
transferred to the jail from the Fountain Correctional Facility in Escambia County for sentencing on a felony escape charge, and was sentenced to 15 years in prison on March 13. Despite having been sentenced over a week ago, Singleton said at the time that the prisoner was allowed to leave the facility because to the deputy who let him go did not receive updated sentence information.
- April 2017: 43-year-old Christopher Wayne Kilpatrick––who had recently been indicted on charges of attempted murder of a police officer, first-degree theft of property, second-degree theft of property, and breaking and entering a motor vehicle––escaped from the county jail while he was awaiting trial. Despite the newly-installed razor wire fence surrounding the facility, Kilpatrick escaped in the exact same manner as Gibson, Nix, Lawson, and Brown back in 2012. According to Singleton, Kilpatrick
crawled through a casing around a plumbing pipe and got onto the roof of the facility before climbing over the razor wire. He then proceeded to
steal 2003 maroon Chrysler Town and Country van shortly after breaking out of the jail.
- December 2017: Kilpatrick escaped the facility once again using the same method he used back in April. Deputies in Macon County, GA responded to
multiple reports of a vehicle driving erratically on December 18 in Red Boiling Springs. Officers attempted to get the driver to stop, but he sped up, almost sideswiping a patrol car before crashing into a ditch. Red Boiling Springs Police Chief Kevin Woodard
directed the driver to exit the vehicle with his hands up, but the driver, who was later identified as Kilpatrick, began to reach behind the driver’s seat, at which point Woodard deployed his taser.
