From Trussville Tribune staff reports
The last of the dozen Walker County Jail escapees to elude capture was arrested on Tuesday in Florida in an area adjacent to West Palm Beach.
Brady Kilpatrick, 24, who was caught about 48 hours after he escaped on Sunday evening, allegedly got a ride to the Sunshine State with his sister, according to an Associated Press story.
The Sheriff of Martin County, Florida, where the Cordova man was arrested around 6:37 p.m., said Kilpatrick told his sister to drive as far south as possible.
Martin County Sheriff William D. Snyder said authorities arrested Kilpatrick as well as his sister, Jensen Davis Lefan, 18; her boyfriend, Hayden Thomas Mayberry, 24; and Mayberry’s childhood friend, Dakota Anthony, 23, in Tequestsa, Florida.
Kilpatrick and the other 11 inmates at the 19-year-old jail in downtown Jasper were able to break out by tricking a new guard into pushing the wrong button — one that opened a door to an outside area of the facility — instead of a door to a cell.
They achieved this by using peanut butter to alter a number above the cell door that the jailer thought he was opening.
Snyder said Kilpatrick told him he ran for two hours straight once he was up and over the jail’s 15- foot razor-wire topped fence.
“He told us that he never stopped running,” he said.
Most of the other escapees were captured in Jasper in the hours that followed their flight. One was arrested in nearby Townley and two were arrested at a truck stop in Birmingham adjacent to Interstate 65.
An Alabama license plate on a vehicle parked outside the Tequestsa, Florida residence where Kilpatrick was captured offered a clue to the law enforcement officials who nabbed Kilpatrck.
The prisoner, who had been in jail after being arrested in July for for possession of controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana, now faces much more serious charges as a result of his brief escape from justice.