Drone dropped “tools” enabling inmate to escape, prison officials say

Enlarge (credit: Peter Linehan)

A South Carolina inmate used wire cutters and other "tools" like mobile phones believed to be dropped from a drone to coordinate his escape from a maximum-security prison. The inmate wasn't noticed missing for 18 hours, prison officials said Friday.

Jimmy Causey. (credit: South Carolina Department of Corrections)

Jimmy Causey was arrested Friday in Austin, Texas, about 1,200 miles away from the Lieber Correctional Institution outside Charleston, authorities said. Prison officials believe the 46-year-old man (PDF), serving a life sentence for kidnapping his attorney, escaped around 8pm on July 4. The authorities had not realized the convict was gone until about 2pm the next afternoon. Causey had cut through four fences to escape.

"We 100 percent know a cellphone was used or multiple cellphones were used while he was incarcerated, and we believe a drone was used to fly in the tools that allowed him to escape," said Bryan Stirling, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, according to The New York Times.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments