Feds: White supremacist who fled jail is captured
PINE BLUFF, ARK. » Authorities on Thursday captured a white supremacist gang leader who escaped from an Arkansas jail with another inmate and whose disappearance may have gone unnoticed for more than a day. Wesley Gullett, 30, was captured after he was found walking alone down a highway in Dover, which is about 100 miles northwest of the Jefferson County jail he escaped from, authorities said. He surrendered without incident and was taken to the Pope County jail. The other escaped inmate, Christopher Sanderson, remained at large.
“Through the diligent efforts of our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, Wesley Gullett has been apprehended,” Cody Hi land, U.S attorney for the eastern district of Arkansas, said in a statement. “He will remain in federal custody and ultimately will have his day in court.”
Jefferson County Sheriff Lafayette Woods told the Arkansas DemocratGazette that the men were last seen at the county jail in Pine Bluff at around 8:30 p.m. Monday. But it wasn’t until 4:30 a.m. Wednesday that officials noticed they were missing, even though Woods told the Pine Bluff Commercial that several other inmates tried to escape Tuesday but were quickly captured after a drone spotted them on the roof.
Woods didn’t immediately reply to Associated Press phone messages left Thursday seeking comment.
Maj. Randy Dolphin, the sheriff’s office operations commander, told The Associated Press on Thursday that investigators still don’t know whether the two were gone all day Tuesday from the roughly 300- inmate jail in Pine Bluff, which is about 40 miles south of Little Rock. Dolphin said jailers are supposed to conduct the checks three times every 12-hour shift.
Gullett and Sanderson put padding in their bunks to make it look as if they were asleep, then climbed onto the jail’s roof and over a fence to escape, the Democrat- Gazette reported. Jailers doing head counts are supposed to physically confirm that inmates are in their bunks if they don’t see movement, but they didn’t do so, Woods said.