A man convicted of murder who escaped from prison in Mississippi on Christmas Eve was recaptured on Wednesday afternoon, prison officials said.
Drew Johnson, 33, broke out of the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville on Tuesday around 3:30 p.m., according to an alert from the state corrections department shared on social media.
Mr. Johnson, who had been convicted of multiple violent crimes including murder, was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, officials said.
He was convicted of homicide in Rankin County, Miss., and sentenced on Feb. 14, 2022. He also pleaded guilty in early 2022 to a series of violent crimes in Tennessee. Mr. Johnson killed an acquaintance in 2016 by stabbing him more than two dozen times, struck another prisoner with a brick and set fire twice to a jail, according to the district attorney in Shelby County, Tenn.
After escaping prison, he was “desperate and very, very dangerous,” local officials warned residents on Tuesday. “Call your family and alert them. Send messages to them and get responses. People tend to be more generous during Christmas and let their guard down. Be vigilant and be careful.”
The prison, which has 2,886 beds, holds inmates in minimum- and medium-security, according to the state’s corrections department. It also houses inmates who are in protective custody.
Phone calls to the corrections department and the South Mississippi Correctional Institution were not immediately returned on Wednesday afternoon.
Earlier this month, an inmate escaped from the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. He was captured more than 400 miles away in Tulsa, Okla., after being on the run for two days.
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