ROCKFORD, Ill. (AP) - Two prisoners who escaped from a maximum-security prison in Wisconsin were recaptured Friday more than 24 hours later in northern Illinois.
WREX-TV reported that 37-year-old James Newman and 46-year-old Thomas Deering were taken into custody in Rockford, about 90 miles south of the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, that they fled on Thursday.
The men arrived at a community center Friday morning, Rockford police said. Staff at the center called police and the men were taken into custody.
Authorities said the pair escaped by climbing over two security fences around 4:30 a.m. on Thursday. The escapees then went to a hotel and were taken by a cab to a supermarket in Poynette, Wisconsin.
Columbia County Sheriff Roger Brandner said in a news release Friday afternoon that a vehicle picked the pair up at a Poynette supermarket just before 6 a.m. Thursday and drove them south. Investigators say the two already had left the Portage area before authorities were notified of their escape. Investigators were still trying to locate the vehicle Friday afternoon.
Investigators also arrested a 46-year-old Pardeeville woman who worked in the prison kitchen. Brandner said during a news conference that detectives found evidence in the woman’s house and car that she assisted in the prisoners’ escape. He said he believes the woman didn’t know them before they were imprisoned.
He said he didn’t know why the woman might have helped them or who picked them up at the supermarket and why.
A message left at the sheriff’s department on Friday evening wasn’t immediately returned.
Online records show Deering was convicted of numerous charges in Milwaukee County including kidnapping, sexual assault and burglary. He was also convicted of battery by a prisoner in 2015 and an escape charge in 2002.
Newman has convictions for kidnapping, escape, theft and discharging a firearm.
Brandner said the prisoners covered the barbed wire on the prison fences with clothing but still hurt themselves going over them. One of them sought medical attention under a false name in Illinois, he said.
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