COLUMBUS: Ohio law enforcement authorities on Monday said the inmate who briefly escaped a state prison last week before he was tackled and tied up with rope at a small general store used ladders to get out of three fenced areas.
Ohio State Highway Patrol spokeswoman Lt. Anne Ralston said James David Myers obtained the ladders Wednesday night after he hid in a maintenance area where he worked as a carpenter. The ladders were inside a locked maintenance building at the facility in north-central Ohio.
Ralston said the fence alarm of Mansfield Correctional Institution went off that night and corrections staff found the ladders at that point.
Myers had minor scrapes on his hands when he returned to jail after he was captured Thursday, Ralston said.
Employees at the Olivesburg General Store, about eight miles away from the prison, have said Myers asked to use the phone Thursday evening, saying he needed to call for help because his vehicle broke down nearby. They also have said Myers bought an iced tea and a lighter at a counter where a flier with his mug shot was displayed.
Surveillance video from the store shows a customer grabbing Myers from behind and pinning him to the floor.
Ralston said Highway Patrol investigators are still trying to determine how and where Myers got the money he used at the store.
Myers, 47, formerly of Randolph Township, was imprisoned in 2010 on kidnapping, rape, aggravated burglary and other charges out of Summit County. Prosecutors alleged he raped a woman at gunpoint and forced her to consume cocaine, and an appeals court upheld his conviction, according to court records.