Arkansas escapee nabbed within 12 hours

Joshua Bean, 35
Joshua Bean, 35

The fourth Arkansas Department of Correction inmate to escape in the past two weeks enjoyed an Independence Day outing of just under 12 hours.

The department reported early Tuesday that Joshua Bean, 35, had walked away from his assigned work-release job site in Texarkana at about 10:45 p.m. Monday. Bean is an inmate at the Texarkana Regional Correctional Center, where he is serving a 15-year sentence out of Garland County for residential burglary and theft of property.

Prison spokesman Solomon Graves reported that Bean had been recaptured at about 11 a.m. Tuesday.

Online records show that Bean, who is also known as Joshua Shane Beane, has an extensive criminal history and is classified as a habitual offender. Since 2008, he has been convicted of several offenses out of Garland County, including forgery, residential burglary, theft of property, being a felon in possession of a firearm, theft by receiving, breaking and entering, possession of methamphetamine and cocaine with the intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Records show that before those convictions, he served time in prison for breaking and entering and theft of property convictions out of Independence County.

Before his escape, he was eligible for parole in October 2018.

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On Friday, another work-release inmate, this one under the supervision of the Benton Unit, was recaptured after a brief escape.

The department reported that Jamie Mitchell, 37, left a job site about 4 p.m. by stealing a vehicle from the company. He was recaptured about 50 minutes later. Mitchell is serving an eight-year sentence for burglary out of Crawford County.

On June 25, the department reported that 39-year-old Joel W. Lane, who had escaped a day earlier from a work-release program in Pine Bluff, was recaptured after a foot chase. Lane had been serving a sentence for simultaneous possession of drugs and a firearm, and possession of a firearm by a certain person.

A fourth inmate who escaped on June 20 remained at large Tuesday.

The department said Robert Woodward, 46, escaped while he and fellow inmates were working in a field by the Delta Regional Unit in Dermott. Woodward is believed to have stolen a pickup that was hauling a tractor when a motorist stopped at a gas station about 1½ miles away and went inside to get something to eat.

Woodward had arrived at the Delta Unit on April 6 to serve an 8½-year sentence for fleeing after a police pursuit in January in Little Rock that ended with state troopers ramming his pickup and shooting out a tire. Police said Woodward is wanted in as many as five states on charges including escape, assault with a weapon and assault on a law enforcement officer.

He is white, 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighs 226 pounds. At the time of his escape, the prison said he had a cropped haircut and graying beard.

Despite the rash of escapes, the department also experienced some unexpected reverse news recently when Steven Dishman, an inmate who had been on the lam from the department for 32 years, was recaptured June 25 while visiting his mother in Springdale.

Dishman was a minimum-security inmate at the Benton Work Release Center when he walked away on May 28, 1985. He had been serving a seven-year sentence imposed in 1984 for a 1979 burglary in Fayetteville.

The now 60-year-old man had been living in south Arkansas but had gone to Springdale for a visit, his mother told The Associated Press. State police said they were questioning people who may have known him under another name.

If he hadn't escaped, Dishman would have been eligible for parole in December 1987. He is being held at the Varner Unit in Grady, and Graves said state police will decide whether any additional charges will be filed against him as a result of the 1985 escape.

Metro on 07/05/2017

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