Escaped Inmate Is Fourth This Year From Jess Dunn Correctional Center

<p>A prisoner who escaped from Jess Dunn Correctional Facility is back in the prison tonight after he led authorities on a nearly 8-hour search. This is the fourth escapee just this year from Jess Dunn this year and it’s beginning to put pressure on surrounding agencies who help track down these escapees.</p>

Thursday, July 5th 2018, 9:43 pm

By: Amy Avery

Escaped Inmate Is Fourth This Year From Jess Dunn Correctional Center

A prisoner who escaped from Jess Dunn Correctional Facility is back in the prison tonight after he led authorities on a nearly 8-hour search. This is the fourth escapee just this year from Jess Dunn this year and it’s beginning to put pressure on surrounding agencies who help track down these escapees.

The Muskogee County Sheriff's Office is one of several agencies that work to help the Department of Corrections find escapees. This means their deputies, along with officers from Muskogee, Haskell and other communities need to be on high alert because they don't know where the person is heading in.

Because Haskell is one of the closest communities to Jess Dunn, Police Chief Kermit Thomas says he immediately works to inform the public when he learns about an escape.

“When situations like this happen, we have to drop everything we're doing and just go into a zone of protecting our community,” said Thomas. “Most of the time they know which way the person went and normally when it's north they have a routine of coming through Haskell.”

Markus Perry escaped from the Jess Dunn Correctional Center around 7:50 this morning and was captured around 5:15 in a wooded area north of the prison.

“There's been a lot of people who have come together to try to help catch this fugitive,” said Muskogee County Sheriff Rob Frazier.

Investigators say Perry was being moved from one part of the facility to another when he climbed over the fence. Corrections officers chased after him but were unable to catch him so several agencies came together to help. It marks the fourth escapee the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office has helped in capturing this year.

“You get tired of having to turn around every month and find there's another violent criminal that's escaped,” said Frazier.

“It takes us away from the things that we are working on and trying to get a hold of,” said Chief Thomas.

And even though the facility is run by the Department of Corrections, the nearby agencies say they are doing everything they can to help. Perry was serving a two-year sentence for child sex abuse and could be facing additional time now because of this incident.