Sheriff: Escaped inmates still on the run, stole a pickup
Reports say the two inmates who killed their guards have stolen a second vehicle.
ATLANTA — Two Georgia inmates who killed their guards and escaped from a prison bus have stolen a second vehicle as they try to stay ahead of a massive manhunt, a sheriff said Wednesday.
Donnie Russell Rowe, serving life without parole, and Ricky Dubose, who has prominent tattoos on his face and neck, took a white pickup truck from an industrial site sometime between 6 p.m. Tuesday and 6 a.m. Wednesday, potentially enabling them to get hours away before
the theft was discovered, Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said.
Sills described the fugitives as violent repeat offenders who are extremely dangerous, having taken the guards’ 9 mm pistols. He urged anyone who sees them to call 911 immediately.
“They just murdered two corrections officers in a brutal fashion,” Sills said. “They’re not concerned with anything regarding human life.”
Immediately after the killings early Tuesday, the pair carjacked a driver who happened to pull up behind the bus on a rural highway. They took off with the Honda driver’s phone, leaving 31 other inmates locked in the bus with the two dead guards, and were gone by the time help arrived.
Hours later, authorities converged on the small city of Madison, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) to the north, where they determined the fugitives had ransacked a house about 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. Sills said the fugitives took some food and likely some clothes, since they left their prison uniforms behind.
Authorities put up roadblocks, only to discover Wednesday morning that the pickup had been stolen, about 9 miles from the burglary. Now authorities are searching for a 2008 white Ford F250 pickup truck with the Georgia tag BCX-5372. The Honda was found later, intentionally hidden in woods not far from the burglarized house, Sills said.