One of four men who escaped from a central Georgia jail last week was caught Thursday, authorities said.
The U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force said 29-year-old Chavis Demaryo Stokes was arrested at home in Montezuma, about 50 miles from the jail, around 2 p.m., the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. The sheriff’s office did not provide any other information about the arrest.
Sheriff David Davis said last week that Stokes, 52-year-old Joey Fournier, 24-year-old Marc Kerry Anderson and 37-year-old Johnifer Dernard Barnwell had escaped through a damaged window and a cut fence at the jail early Oct. 16. There was no indication Thursday that any of the others had been caught.
The escape happened when fewer than 10 employees were working at the jail, according to the sheriff.
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Video footage showed a blue Dodge Challenger that had been just outside the jail hours before the escape and appeared to show someone tampering with the fence. That person then brought some items into the enclosed area, and the sheriff said investigators believe the items were used to help the men escape.
Davis said last week that it wasn’t clear whether the four men left the jail in that car or in another vehicle or whether they left on foot. The sheriff’s office said the car was found abandoned Friday in the parking lot of a Macon supermarket.
Bibb County deputies arrested a man on Tuesday and charged him with auto theft, saying he stole a Dodge Challenger from a rental car agency a week before the escape, which he was also charged with aiding.
