7 escaped New Orleans jail inmates still at large as search enters 4th day; officials increase reward

A manhunt for the inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail by fleeing through a hole behind a toilet entered its fourth day on Monday, as officials increased the reward for the capture of the fugitives.

Seven of the 10 men remained at large, officials said. A spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press that the agency was unable to provide details about the scope and target of the investigation for security reasons. The spokesperson added that a multiagency task force was scouring the region for the remaining fugitives.

In a separate statement, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said on Sunday her office’s “main priority remains recovering the prisoners, protecting the public, securing and stabilizing the facility staff, and building.”

New Orleans jail escape update

At a news conference on Sunday, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said the escape was the worst in recent state history and said he is ordering an audit of the sheriff’s office as well as the Orleans Parish Prison.

“This massive jailbreak could be the largest jailbreak in the history of the state, and it never should have happened. The public deserves to know who, what and how this happened,” Landry said.

Three jail staff members have been suspended without pay pending the outcome of an internal investigation, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said Sunday. 

Landry said an audit of the jail by the Department of Corrections will be done by the end of the week. He said everyone in the criminal justice system needs to be held accountable, “except for the police, who seem to be doing their job.”

Landry cited delays in bringing charges, prosecutions and sentencing as factors he said contribute to jail populations.

He blamed Friday’s escape on what he called a “progressive justice system,” saying that “there is also no excuse for the way these cases are currently being mismanaged in our criminal justice system.”

The governor said that nine of the 10 escapees had been in the pretrial stages for years, and he wants the district attorney to explain the slow progress in prosecuting criminal cases in the city.

Rewards increased for capture of inmates

At least one of the escaped inmates was captured based on a tip from the public, according to a statement from the FBI on the social media platform X.

Authorities said Monday that a total reward of $20,000 was being offered for information leading to the arrest of each inmate, with $10,000 coming from the FBI, another $5,000 from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and $5,000 more from CrimeStoppers. The FBI and CrimeStoppers had increased their rewards from $5,000 and $2,000, respectively.

FBI Special Agent Jonathan Trapp said at the news conference Sunday that he believes members of the public may be aiding the men, and authorities will arrest anyone found aiding or abetting them.

The escape is drawing intense scrutiny. It took hours for sheriff’s officials to learn of the escape and then more time still to alert New Orleans police, even though some of the missing inmates are accused of violent offenses and they escaped into a neighborhood less than 2 miles from the city’s famous French Quarter.

Louisiana State Police Superintendent Colonel Robert Hodges said authorities in neighboring states have been notified but officials do not believe the men have left the state yet. Leads for the men have not panned out, he said.

Who are the inmates that escaped?

The men range from 19 years old to 42, and face a variety of charges including aggravated assault, domestic abuse battery and murder. New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick warned that the fugitives are dangerous in a news conference on Friday night but also urged the public “not to panic.”

One of the men who is still at large was identified as Derrick Groves. 

Groves, 27, was arrested for the shooting deaths of Jamar Robinson and Byron Jackson on Mardi Gras in 2018, CBS affiliate WWL-TV reported. At least two members of Robinson’s family told WWL-TV that they went into hiding following Groves’ escape.

“We didn’t know what was going to happen, we didn’t know how Derrick Groves felt … whether he was coming for us, we didn’t know,” one of the family members told the news station.

They also said the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office did not contact them at any point after the jailbreak. 

The sheriff’s office on Friday identified Robert Moody as one of the escapees who had been recaptured following a tip to CrimeStoppers.

Two others that were captured were 24-year-old Dkenan Dennis and 20-year-old Kendell Myles, authorities said. They were rebooked and charged with simple escape, according to the sheriff’s office.

How did the New Orleans inmate escape?

Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson said the men were able to get out of the Orleans Justice Center because of “defective locks.” Hutson said she has continuously raised concerns about the locks to officials and, as recently as this week, advocated for money to fix the aged infrastructure.

Hutson said Friday that “there’s no way” for inmates to escape the facility where 1,400 people are being held “without help from the outside.”

The inmates were discovered missing during a routine head count conducted at 8:30 a.m. local time at the Orleans Parish Jail, according to the sheriff’s office. They are believed to have escaped sometime just after midnight. 

The sheriff said that around 12:23 a.m., the inmates yanked the sliding jail cell door off the track and at 1:01 a.m., they exited the jail after breaching a wall behind a toilet. 

Photos provided by authorities showed what they said were clean cuts on metal bars behind the toilet inside the jail cells. 

The toilet and bolts were removed using toiletry items, the sheriff said, but didn’t specify what the items were. The inmates then scaled down a wall and ran across the interstate.

The Orleans County Sheriff’s Office on Friday night released security video of the extraordinary escape, which shows the inmates sprinting out of the prison and then traversing the freeway.    

The escaped inmates also scrawled obscene messages for the guards. One, which was misspelled, read “to easy, LOL.”