Locals on Edge as Prisoner Goes Missing—Again

Calvin Adams escaped an Arkansas prison in 2009 and may have just done so again
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 1, 2019 7:06 AM CDT
Murderer Who Busted Out of Prison 10 Years Ago Is Missing
This undated photo shows Calvin Adams.   (Arkansas Department of Corrections via AP)

"We'll get him." That's the determined response of a spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Corrections, which has pulled out all the stops to look for a convicted murderer who either managed to bust out of a state prison or is hiding very well somewhere on its grounds. What makes the case of Calvin Adams somewhat unusual: He escaped from a different state prison 10 years earlier and made it almost to the Canadian border before being caught just days later. Per the New York Times, hundreds of law enforcement officers are now on the hunt for the 49-year-old, with K9 units, drones, cars, choppers, and even horses assisting in the search at and around the East Arkansas Regional Unit in Brickeys. The AP reports Adams was last spotted in the prison's boiler room at 12:15am Monday; guards discovered he was missing at about 4am.

Adams, convicted in 1995 of capital murder in the shooting death of a 25-year-old man, broke out of the state's Cummins Unit on May 25, 2009, with another inmate after slipping into prison guard outfits made on-site and sauntering out unnoticed during a shift change. They were caught four days later about 90 miles south of Buffalo, NY, and each got six more years tacked onto their sentences. Authorities think Adams may still be hiding somewhere on the EARU premises because of the electric fence surrounding the perimeter. "The fence is not set on 'stun'; it is a lethal fence," ADC rep Dina Tyler says, per WMC, adding to the Times that there are only two points of entry, and Adams wasn't seen on security tapes leaving through either. Residents are nervously hoping for news that Adams has been caught. "You never know what these people are doing these days," one tells WMC. (More escaped criminal stories.)

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