Multiple Prisoners Escape Louisiana Jail Through a Wall, Leading to Massive Manhunt By Charlotte Phillipp

A manhunt is underway for an escaped inmate after he and two other inmates removed concrete blocks from a wall to escape from a Louisiana jail.

According to the Associated Press, CNN and USA Today, detectives and SWAT officers are currently searching for 24-year-old Keith Eli, who remains at large, three days after he and two others escaped the St. Landry Parish Jail in Opelousas — about 150 miles from New Orleans — on Wednesday, Dec. 3.

“We will continue our efforts, without end, to apprehend Keith Eli. We would prefer that he surrender himself peaceably,” St. Landry Parish Sheriff Bobby J. Guidroz said of Eli, who was jailed on a charge of second-degree murder. “But we will not rest until he is captured.”

Eli escaped alongside 24-year-old Johnathan Jevon Joseph, who was captured on Friday, Dec. 5, after giving chase, as well as 26-year-old Joseph Allen Harrington, who died by suicide with a hunting rifle on Thursday, Dec. 4, after police found him at a home.

Port Barre Police Chief Deon Boudreaux said that officers used a loudspeaker to urge Harrington to come outside. He faced several felony charges, including home invasion and burglary.

Joseph was discovered in a storage shed after investigators received a tip. He was jailed on multiple charges, including rape and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

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Sheriff Guidroz said the three inmates removed blocks from a degrading wall in the prison to create a hole, and used sheets to assist them in climbing down a wall and dropping to the ground.

“An internal investigation has been initiated, the jail supervisory staff will be providing a comprehensive report, and both will be forwarded to my office for appropriate action,” he said in a statement.

Another inmate escaped from the same prison in October before being recaptured by the Opelousas Police Department, according to local outlet KADN.

Parish president Jessie Bellard has disputed the sheriff’s claims about the structural integrity of the jail.

“The claims about crumbling walls and rusted-out cell door locks are inaccurate. The Parish Jail does not have these structural issues, and I invite the Sheriff to produce documentation to substantiate his claims,” Bellard wrote in a Dec. 6 Facebook post.

In May, 10 inmates in Orleans Parish escaped, using a hole behind a toilet and leaving their captors a taunting message on the wall: “To Easy LOL.”

Officials alleged that Sterling Williams, a maintenance worker, assisted the inmates in the escape, shutting off water to a toilet and sink inside a cell that were later ripped out by the inmates, who then escaped through the hole in the wall.

Jail surveillance video obtained by the outlets shows two inmates ripping open the door to the cell where the water had been shut off. Inside, the inmates then cut through the pipes connected to the sink and toilet to remove them and escaped through the wall.

The escape came to a dramatic end on Oct. 8, when U.S. Marshals announced that they had found the last remaining escapee, Derrick Groves, hiding out in an Atlanta residence.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Fair told CNN that a tip called into Crimestoppers Greater New Orleans led investigators to Groves’ location and that it took “almost three hours” and multiple rounds of gas to find him within the house. He was eventually found hiding in a crawl space.