Sheriff hunting for the last of 3 inmates who escaped from a Louisiana jail

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — Authorities hunted Saturday for the last of three inmates who escaped from a Louisiana jail after removing concrete blocks from a deteriorating wall.

“We would prefer that he surrender himself peaceably,” St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby J. Guidroz said in a statement, “but we will not rest until he is captured.”

Detectives and SWAT officers were following leads Saturday in pursuit of 24-year-old Keith Eli, who remained at large three days after he and two other inmates escaped the parish jail in southwestern Louisiana, said Maj. Mark LeBlanc, a spokesman for the sheriff. Eli had been jailed on a charge of second-degree murder.

One of the escapees, 24-year-old Johnathan Jevon Joseph, was captured Friday following a brief chase. LeBlanc said investigators following a tip found Joseph, who was jailed on charges of rape and other crimes, hiding out at a home. Joseph ran to a nearby storage shed, where he surrendered after being cornered, LeBlanc said.

The third escapee, 26-year-old Joseph Allen Harrington, killed himself with a hunting rifle Thursday after police found him at a home and used a loudspeaker to urge him to come out, said Port Barre Police Chief Deon Boudreaux. Before his escape, Harrington had faced several felony charges, including home invasion.

It wasn’t the first bold jail escape in Louisiana this year. In May, 10 inmates broke out of a New Orleans jail after crawling through a hole behind a toilet and leaving a message that read “To Easy LoL.” Authorities searched across multiple states for the escapees as local officials pointed fingers over who was to blame for the jailbreak. It took five moths before all 10 inmates were recaptured.

As sheriff, Guidroz oversees the St, Landry Parish jail in Opelousas, about 130 miles (209 kilometers) northwest of New Orleans. He has said the inmates escaped after discovering “a degrading part of an upper wall area” and over time managed to remove the mortar holding the wall’s concrete blocks together. That enabled them to remove enough blocks to slip through the wall.

The inmates then used sheets to scale the jail’s outer wall, drop onto a first-floor roof and lower themselves to the ground, Guidroz said in a news release Wednesday.

The sheriff said the breakout will be investigated internally.