Killer's escape from Arkansas prison result of 'complacency,' director says

Special to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette - 06/13/2016 - Inmate Lloyd Jones
Special to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette - 06/13/2016 - Inmate Lloyd Jones

PINE BLUFF — The escape of a convicted murderer from an east Arkansas prison into a nearby slough while with a work crew was the result of “complacency," the director of the state Department of Correction said Monday.

The June 13 escape of Lloyd Jones, 40, occurred shortly after a security officer wrongly allowed him and three other inmates to return to work after lunch at a time when only one security officer was present, Director Wendy Kelley told reporters during a news conference.

Two construction supervisors had left the site earlier — one to pick up supplies and the other to install butane bottles and take a lunch break, the department said. Another security officer, who notified a supervisor, had also left to take an inmate back to the unit for a medical appointment and lunch.

One of the supervisors has been terminated while the other has been suspended without pay for a week, Kelley said. Their names had not been released as of Monday afternoon.

Nine inmates from the work crew continued their lunch break, seated under trees at the property on the south end of the prison as the four others returned to work. The lone officer used a bus at one end of the trailer to keep watch of all 13, Kelley said.

“The sergeant should not have allowed those four to go back to work until he had more staff there,” Kelley told reporters at the department’s office in Pine Bluff. “He should have kept all 13 of them together. He can't tell you where Jones was.”

Once back on site shortly before noon that day, Kelley said, Jones and the three other inmates returned to work to finish welding a tongue onto the mobile home for relocation of the trailer.

“At least one [inmate] was underneath the trailer holding up beams together while they were doing the welding,” she said. “We believe that Jones was also underneath there and went out the back side of the trailer and into the slough that was behind it.”

A short time later, Jones was deemed missing after a random count of the inmates by the sergeant, according to department officials. He was found June 16 about 3.4 miles from the prison after a slough was drained.

Information regarding disciplinary action against the security officer on site at the time of Jones' escape was not released Monday, with officials citing the appeals process.

Read Tuesday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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