Police Net Closes On Escapees
Two men who escaped from a Mississippi prison were captured Friday after nearly three weeks on the lam, police said.
Roy Randall Harper, who had been imprisoned for robbery, was caught in the town of St. John, Ill. about 7 a.m. by a St. John police officer, state police Detective Dwayne Dillahunty said.
About three hours later John F. Woolard, a convicted killer, was caught by Indiana State Police, FBI agent Charlie Rownd said from Indianapolis.
A SWAT team joined dozens of officers, some in helicopters and others on the ground with dogs, after an officer spotted the two men walking along a railroad track, reports CBS News affiliate WBBM.
Harper surrendered immediately when the officer drew his weapon and told the duo to stop.
"Once you pointed a gun at him he was cooperative," St. John police Capt. Bernie Johnson said said of Harper, who was taken to the St. John Police Department.
But Woolard fled into the countryside.
"Ultimately, we found out that when he fled, he ran to a car wash and hijacked a van," St. John police Capt. Bernie Johnson said. The van was found abandoned a few miles away near Lowell, where the manhunt resumed.
Police evacuated some residents from a rural area along the Indiana-Illinois state line west of Lowell and have sent in a SWAT team to help locate Harper.
The two are accused of crimes in three states since their escape May 28 from a state prison in Parchman, Miss.
Police said they bound and gagged a couple in their home in Webb, Miss., June 4, stole more than a dozen guns and made off in their car. They also are suspected of attacking a 56-year-old man last Friday at a West Virginia motel, taking $300 and his van.
They were first spotted in Indiana on Wednesday but escaped after a high-speed chase.
Police say the fugitives fired at a police officer around 2 a.m. Wednesday when he stopped their van for speeding on Interstate 65 in northern Indiana. The van then sped off with the officer in pursuit. Officers from six other departments and the Indiana State Police eventually joined the chase.
The chase ended at a nearby gas station after authorities blew out the van's tires and the men ran to a nature preserve.
The manhunt intensified Thursday night after two other men stumbled upon the two fugitives in a rural barn, where officers believe Harper and Woolard had been holed up. Authorities said the two stole a van from one of the men and sped away, heading north in the direction of St. John and Gary.
Woolard, 37, was serving a life sentence for murder and Harper, 42, was serving 88 years without parole for robbery. Authorities said they escaped by using a hacksaw to cut through a metal plate under a louvered window and a razor-wire fence.
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