PINE BLUFF -- Ruby Jenkins hasn't had a decent night's sleep since June 21, the day a convicted murderer escaped from the Arkansas Department of Correction's Pine Bluff Unit with a shotgun in hand.
She climbs out of bed several times a night, wide-eyed and nervous, to check the windows and doors of her Jefferson County home, making sure they're secured. She also keeps a loaded .45-caliber pistol next to her bed, just in case.
"I can just see him coming in my house and cutting my throat in my sleep," said Jenkins, 75, who lives just a few miles from the Pine Bluff Unit. "I read all those mystery and suspense novels; now I feel like I am living in one."
The search for trusty inmate Timothy Buffington is still going strong but has turned up few clues, causing frustration for prison officials and for those who live in the area.
Buffington, 47, was working a maintenance assignment at a house on prison grounds when officials said he stole a shotgun from the property and fled. He tried to force a prison employee who lived at the house to drive him away, but she escaped and called 911 for help, officials said.
Prison officials said Buffington -- who was serving a 240-month sentence for first-degree murder out of Logan County -- had a spotless disciplinary record since he began his sentence in 1998, when a jury convicted him of shooting his ex-wife with a high-powered rifle.
He gained trusty status in 2003 because of that clean record and was on track to be released from prison in 2018. As a trusty inmate, Buffington was allowed to work outside the prison doing such jobs as gardening and cleaning, said Shea Wilson, a Correction Department spokesman.
Wilson said the Correction Department has been following up on tips and leads since Buffington's escape, but none have panned out. She said the department is also re-evaluating its policies and procedures related to trusty inmates, along with internal policies related to Buffington's escape.
"We have had people say they have seen someone who meets his description at various locations in Arkansas and one in Mississippi; however, those have been ruled out to not be him or not confirmed to be him," Wilson said.
In the meantime, "We continue to maintain the command center, respond to calls that come in and are working to develop new leads," she added. "There has been no confirmed sighting of him since he was captured on home video surveillance at a house on Princeton Pike the night he escaped."
The FBI recently released a set of photos depicting Buffington in a camouflage shirt and in different stages of beard and hair growth. He is white, stands 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighs about 180 pounds. He was bald at the time of his escape.
Buffington is among 83 inmates who have escaped from the state prison system since 1996, when the electronic inmate-tracking system started. Only 11 others have evaded capture longer than Buffington, according to records obtained from the Correction Department.
His capture can't come soon enough for many who have been on edge for the past three weeks.
In addition to searching the 25-mile radius surrounding the Pine Bluff prison grounds, the Correction Department is monitoring Booneville, the Logan County town where Buffington lived and killed his ex-wife, Rhonda Combs.
Buffington's last known address in Booneville is now an empty lot, but he has relatives in the area, prison officials said.
In a recent interview, Wayne Fletcher, 36, of Logan County said he has been "pretty worried" since hearing news of Buffington's escape because he dated his ex-wife and was in the truck with her when Buffington opened fire. Fletcher also testified against Buffington at his trial.
In Jefferson County, Jenkins, who lives alone, said she and the women she walks with at the mall in Pine Bluff follow "every bit of news" they can find related to Buffington. One friend, Truvy Barlow, said she has tried to convince Jenkins that he is likely out of state and won't return.
"I'm not really that worried about him being around here anymore," Barlow said. "After all, he was smart enough to get free, so he has to be smart enough to know that he can't come anywhere around here. He isn't from here anyway, so why would he want to be in Pine Bluff?"
Still, Jenkins said she is ready for a fight if anyone, including Buffington, breaks into her home.
"I'll shoot them," she said. "I'm a crack shot."
State Desk on 07/15/2014