Photo Credit: Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office
Police in Louisiana said Monday they caught two of the four inmates who escaped from jail over the weekend, unbeknownst to the guards who were supposed to be watching them.
Omarion Hookfin, 19; Avery Guidry, 19; Jamarcus Cyprian, 20, and Travon Johnson, 21, who were all incarcerated at the Tangipahoa Parish Jail, escaped through a weak portion of the jail's chain-linked fence on Saturday and Sunday, Chief Jimmy Travis of the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office told reporters during a news conference Monday.
The jail's officials did not know about the breakouts until they received a phone call Sunday afternoon from a family member of one of the escapees, Travis said. The relative alerted them that two inmates escaped Saturday and came to a relative's house in the middle of the night looking for a place to stay, Travis said.
By the time jail staff acted, two other inmates had already escaped, according to the chief.
"It's very concerning. If the proper head counts had been conducted, we would [have] known about it immediately," Travis said.
The chief, however, said it wasn't long before investigators found Johnson and Guidry, according to police, after receiving a call from someone who said they saw them.
The pair, who were arrested in connection with a 2022 homicide in Hammond, Louisiana, were hiding in a dumpster behind a Dollar General store roughly 22 miles from the jail, according to police.
