Inmate carves out of cell and jailers didn’t notice for 3 days, Texas sheriff says
A 34-year-old inmate was reported missing by the Gregg County Sheriff’s Office on Dec. 26 after he carved through brick in the jail and escaped through the county courthouse.
Problem is, Jace Martin Laws had actually escaped his cell on Dec. 23, Sheriff Maxey Cerliano told multiple outlets.
A sheriff’s office spokesman said Laws was found Dec. 27 at Laws Collision Repair in neighboring Smith County, the Longview News-Journal reported. The business is owned by Laws’ father and his wife, the newspaper reported.
Cerliano said Laws had “quite the journey” before he was captured by multiple law enforcement agencies, including the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Gladewater Police Department and the U.S. Marshals Service, CBS19 reported.
“Obviously, he had some help getting around. We do know that. We have identified some methods in which he traveled,” Cerliano told CBS19. “As you know, we were following his steps yesterday 50-60 miles from here in Marion County, and he was able to get back here.”
The jail reported Laws escape on Thursday to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards when officials discovered he was missing, Cerliano told the Longview News-Journal.
“It’s been a difficult 24 hours, I’ll tell you,” Cerliano told CBS19. “We’re fortunate that we had people working around the clock. He was somewhat overwhelmed due to the amount of resources that had been deployed to be able to get him. We feel like that that also contributed to little to no resistance.”
Laws was sentenced to serve 70 years after being charged on two counts of assault of a police officer, according to Gregg County Sheriff’s Office.
He was booked in September 2018 for possession of marijuana and released the next day. The following week, Laws was arrested by the Gregg County Sheriff’s Office for marijuana possession, burglary of a vehicle, burglary of a building, evading arrest and assaulting a Longview police officer, per jail records.
Laws was being held in Gregg County Jail on a $1 million bond on a charge of escape while in custody, the department said in a news release.