Around a dozen prison employees were suspended in Mississippi after not appropriately reporting the escape of a convicted murderer.
Harrison County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Leo Honeycutt confirmed that Michael Floyd Wilson was arrested around 130 miles outside of the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility, according to the Associated Press. The staff members reportedly waited over a day to tell the state’s Department of Corrections that he had escaped the jail.
“We are placing several employees on administrative leave pending disciplinary action, including management as the investigation continues,” said Mississippi Department of Corrections commissioner Burl Cain.
The identities of the suspended employees are unknown, as is how long these suspensions will last. However, law enforcement did acknowledge that they could have done more if they had known about Wilson’s escape.
“We dropped the ball because we didn’t know he had escaped,” said Honeycutt.
Wilson, also known as Pretty Boy Floyd, according to WXXV, was previously sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for murdering two people, Carmen Dale Edwards and Kenneth Gibson, in 2014. This time marks the second time he has escaped from the facility and his third prison escaping custody overall, having previously tried sneaking out of the Greene County jail in 2001 and Central Mississippi in 2018.
According to the Associated Press, Floyd was able to evade capture by fleeing to a nearby subdivision in Pearl. When he encountered someone that could help him, he convinced them that he was an FBI agent who got in a crash. From there, the unidentified person called an ambulance that took him to a nearby hospital, where he gave a fake name.
Shortly after, it’s reported that Floyd went to a Walmart in the city of Richland, where he was seen to still be bleeding. This prompted bystanders to call the police, to whom he provided a fake name again, who sent him back to the hospital —all before the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility was made aware of Wilson’s escape.
He was arrested after he reportedly committed a carjacking and was pulled over driving the stolen car.
It is unknown whether he will receive further charges for his prison escape. However, local newspaper Hattiesburg American reported that he was found guilty for his 2018 escape and was subsequently sentenced to another life sentence. No charges have been made publicly available since his capture.
Newsweek reached out to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility for a comment but they did not respond in time for publication.
Update 02/15/2022 at 5:25 p.m. EST: This story has been updated to include more information on Michael Floyd Wilson’s escape attempt.
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