Seven men – including one convicted in four killings and others charged with murder – remained on the run after a breakout at New Orleans’s jail that officials fear may have been enabled by help from within their own ranks.
A total of 10 men participated in the brazen overnight escape by fleeing through a hole behind a toilet and scaling a wall while the lone staffer assigned to their cell pod was away getting food.
Three of the escapees were captured within hours, according to officials, who on Saturday continued a frantic search overnight for those still on the loose.
Surveillance footage, shared with media during a news conference, showed the escapees sprinting out of the facility – some wearing orange clothing and others in white. They scaled a fence, using blankets to avoid being cut by barbed wire, after which some could be seen sprinting across the nearby interstate and into a neighborhood.
A photograph obtained by numerous news outlets, including the Guardian, showed the opening the men escaped through after a toilet in a cell had been removed. Above the hole were scrawled messages that included profanities: “To Easy LoL” with an arrow pointing at the gap, and “catch us when you can”.
The absence of the 10 men, who also utilized facility deficiencies that officials have long complained about, went unnoticed for hours. It was not until a routine morning headcount, more than seven hours later, that law enforcement learned of the escape.
Officials from the sheriff’s office say no deputy had been at the pod where the fugitives were being held. There was a technician – a civilian employee of the jail rather than one of the sheriff’s office’s sworn deputies – there to observe the pod, but she had stepped away to get food, they said.
Soon after the escape, attempted murder suspect Kendall Myles, 20, was apprehended after a brief foot chase through the French Quarter. He had previously escaped twice from juvenile detention centers.
By Friday evening, two more fugitives had been captured. Officials found battery suspect Robert Moody, 21, in New Orleans’s Central City section thanks to a Crimestoppers tip, according to the Orleans parish sheriff’s office, which runs the jail. Dkenan Dennis, an armed robbery suspect, was found near an eastern New Orleans highway, the Louisiana attorney general, Liz Murrill, announced on the social media platform X.
The Orleans parish sheriff, Susan Hutson, said the men were able to get out of the Orleans Justice Center because of “defective locks”. Hutson said she has continuously raised concerns about the locks to officials and, as recently as this week, advocated for money to fix the ailing infrastructure.
Hutson said there are indications that people inside her department helped the fugitives escape.
“It’s almost impossible, not completely, but almost impossible for anybody to get out of this facility without help,” she said of the jail, where 1,400 people are being held.
The escapees yanked open a door to enter the cell with the hole at about 1am Friday.
At least one of the steel bars protecting plumbing fixtures “appeared to have been intentionally cut using a tool”, according to a statement from the Orleans sheriff’s office on Friday night.
The men shed their jail uniforms once out of the facility, and it is still unclear how some of them obtained regular clothing so quickly, officials said.
Three sheriff’s employees have been placed on suspension pending the outcome of the investigation. It was not immediately clear whether any of the employees were suspected of helping with the escape. Officials also didn’t say whether the technician who left to get food was among the three suspended.
The escapees range in age from 19 to 42. Most are in their 20s.
One of the fugitives, 27-year-old Derrick Groves, was convicted on two charges of second-degree murder and two charges of attempted second-degree murder at a trial in October for his role in a deadly quadruple shooting on Fat Tuesday in 2018. He also pleaded guilty to two charges of manslaughter in connection with a double killing in 2017, and an unrelated charge of battery of a correctional facility employee filed against him in April 2024.
Murder convictions in Louisiana carry mandatory life imprisonment. But Groves remained at New Orleans’s jail rather than at a state prison after his attorney was suspended from practicing law and there were post-conviction proceedings related to his double-murder trial pending against him.
Law enforcement warned that Groves may attempt to locate witnesses in the murder trial.
Two others – Jermaine Donald, 42, and Corey Boyd, 19 – had been jailed on charges of murder. Leo Tate, 31, had previously faced murder charges that were dismissed as part of a plea deal.
Gary Price, 21, is charged with attempted murder.
Hutson said the police department was actively working with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to search for the fugitives.
The sheriff said the jail she runs is about 60% staffed and thus staff are “stretched thin”.
Hutson is facing re-election in October. And at least one of Hutson’s opponents, the former interim New Orleans police superintendent Michelle Woodfork, demanded she answer questions about the escape.
The New Orleans district attorney, Jason Williams, appointed Woodfork to a position in his office last year and said Friday’s escapes represented “a complete failure of the most basic responsibilities entrusted to a sheriff or jail administrator”.
According to Hutson, her agency had “indication” that those who escaped “received assistance … from individuals inside of our department”, USA Today reported.
Hutson added that a jail employee saw the men escape through surveillance footage but did not notify authorities.
Photos shared by the Louisiana state police on Saturday morning showed the three escapees who were caught on Friday being flown out of New Orleans by helicopter to a state prison.
“During the transfer, one of the inmates exhibited hostile behavior, requiring troopers to use a spit hood to ensure their safety,” the state police’s social media account said.
In response, the Louisiana governor, Jeff Landry, wrote on social media: “Great work by Louisiana state police and assisting law enforcement agencies. The job is NOT finished!”
The FBI has offered a reward of up to $10,000 for tips leading to the arrest of the escapees.
Maya Yang and the Associated Press contributed reporting
