Authorities in north Arkansas arrested a parolee after responding to a fire reported Tuesday night at a property near Mountain Home, and then they recaptured him later when he fled while being escorted to jail, the Baxter County sheriff said.
Michael Roy Thompson, 49, faces charges that include arson, breaking or entering, first-degree escape and domestic battery.
Deputies responded about 10:15 p.m. to a fire on Buzzard Roost Cutoff. Thompson's girlfriend said she became afraid of Thompson after they returned to the home that night, so she went and hid in nearby woods, Sheriff John Montgomery wrote in a statement. The sheriff said investigators found evidence to substantiate a separate claim that Thompson had assaulted his girlfriend the night before.
Authorities said that while his girlfriend was in the woods, Thompson damaged her vehicle and set fire to a plastic tote near a shed, though no structures burned. He was arrested a short time later several miles away.
While being escorted from an investigator's office to jail, Thompson ran off before being "quickly captured a short distance away," Montgomery wrote. One jailer who pursued Thompson was said to have suffered minor injuries.
Thompson remained in the Baxter County jail Wednesday. Montgomery wrote that Thompson was paroled in December, though the statement didn't provide details about his criminal history beyond noting that he has been booked into the Baxter County jail nine times since 2007.
