One of two prisoners believed to have escaped from one of several Mississippi prisons recently rocked by violence is back in custody, authorities said early Sunday.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections tweeted just before 3:30 a.m. that David May was in custody. Further details weren’t immediately released.
Gov. Phil Bryant on Saturday said via Twitter that he directed “the use of all necessary assets and personnel” to find the two inmates who escaped Saturday from the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Five inmates have died in prison violence since Dec. 29; three of those deaths have occurred at Parchman.
The corrections department said in a Facebook post that May, 42, and Dillion Williams, 27, were discovered missing from Parchman during an “emergency count” about 1:45 a.m. Saturday. May is serving a life sentence for two aggravated assault convictions in Harrison County, and Williams is serving a 40-year sentence for residential burglary and aggravated assault in Marshall County.
The state Department of Public Safety deployed state troopers and the highway patrol’s special operations group to help the Department of Corrections find the two inmates and to help restore order at the troubled facility that they escaped from, Bryant said.