Two inmates, including one who is facing charges for murder, fled a jail in eastern Texas on Tuesday morning.
Authorities initiated a manhunt for Brian Allen Tucker, 44, who is accused of strangling a man to death with shoelaces, and John Martin King, a 39-year-old robbery suspect, according to Reuters. The two escaped together.
“They squeezed their way through the fence somehow,” said Sergeant Brad Cummings of the Hopkins County Sheriff’s office in Sulphur Springs, Texas, according to the news agency.
The men’s black-and-white prison uniforms were found lying in the detention facility, meaning that they possibly escaped in only their underwear.
“Officers were notified that the two subjects had left the jail, and we immediately set up a command post and notified all surrounding agencies, and all schools within our county are on lockdown,” Cummings said.
“They are not wearing their black and whites, so their clothing is unknown,” Beth Renfro, a dispatcher for the sheriff’s office, told the Dallas Morning News.
According to NBC News, Tucker was being held on $1 million bond for the 2011 killing.
Tucker is 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighing about 170 pounds and has a medium build. He has a mustache an a goatee, according to KHOU TV.
King is 5 feet 8 inches tall, 165 pounds, with a medium build, and has a light goatee and mustache.
