7 high-profile hospital prisoner escapes you won’t believe: Was ‘undergoing a medical procedure’
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At least seven people in police custody have escaped from hospitals since August, and some — including a suspected murderer and an accused carjacker — are still on the loose.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Justice to see if these figures were unusually high. In 2019, Bureau of Justice Statistics indicated that over 2,000 prisoners escaped from federal and state prisons, though it’s unclear as to how many of these escapes were from hospitals.
Carlton Bradford Gillis, 37, was captured recently in Georgia, five days after he escaped from police custody in a hospital in Albany, Georgia.
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The Dougherty County Police Department of Georgia wrote on its Facebook page that Gillis “overpowered a guard and escaped on foot” after he was transported to the hospital on the morning of Oct. 7.
Gillis had pending charges against him in multiple Georgia counties.
Mother Trudy Sellars, 63, and stepfather Randy Doral Williams, pictured far right, are both facing criminal charges for helping Carlton Bradford Gillis, 37, escape police custody on October 7. Gillis was recaptured on October 12. (Dougherty County Jail)
At the time of his escape, he was jailed for burglary, criminal damage to property, interference with government property, obstruction of a law enforcement officer, disorderly conduct and violation of probation.
Since his escape, he’s now been charged with kidnapping, forcible robbery, fleeing a police officer, reckless driving and driving with a suspended license.
Authorities announced on Wednesday that Gillis’ mother and stepfather were charged with assisting his escape.
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The two turned themselves in.
Was ‘undergoing a medical procedure’
In mid-September, two prisoners from different parts of the country escaped from a hospital and were re-captured within 24 hours.
One man was arrested after he escaped from a Massachusetts hospital while undergoing a medical procedure, police said. He was quickly recaptured. (iStock)
Isaac Rivera, 24, escaped from UMass Marlborough Hospital in Massachusetts on Sept. 23.
Rivera escaped while “undergoing a medical procedure,” the Marlborough Police Department shared on Facebook.
Further details were not provided by the department.
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“Isaac Rivera was under arrest for numerous charges including but not limited to domestic assault and battery, strangulation, assault and battery on a police officer, and illegal possession of a firearm,” said the Marlborough Police Department.
Rivera was recaptured on September 24. Additional details were not released.
On September 21, convicted child sex offender Tommy Wayne Boyd, 45, escaped from Mercy Hospital South in St. Louis, Missouri.
Boyd was serving a 30-year sentence for statutory sodomy.
Unlike Gillis, who overpowered a guard, Boyd simply walked out of the hospital shortly before 4 a.m.
Tommy Wayne Boyd, 45, was reported missing after he was transported from the Potosi Correctional Facility to the Mercy Hospital South in St. Louis, Missouri, for treatment — and then escaped the hospital. He was re-arrested less than 24 hours later. (St. Louis County Police Department )
A statement from the St. Louis police said that Boyd “should be considered dangerous.”
Boyd was re-captured less than 24 hours after his escape.
“Tommy Boyd was located and taken into custody without incident in the 7300 block of Watson Road a short time ago,” the St. Louis County Police Department posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on the evening of Sept. 21.
“St. Louis County Police Department’s Special Response Unit was following up on leads when they located Boyd and took him into custody,” the department said.
Made a rope out of hospital linens
In an escape that sounds ripped from an action movie, Yenchun Chen, 44, of New York, spent more than a month on the lam after he made a rope out of hospital linens and rappelled out of a fifth-floor hospital room at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital.
Chen was hospitalized on August 4, five days after he was taken into custody on drug charges. He made his escape on August 9.
Yenchun Chen, 44, spent more than a month on the run after he rappelled out of a fifth-story hospital room in New York while in police custody. (NYPD Crime Stoppers/New York Post)
Police re-arrested Chen on September 12. Fox News Digital reported at the time that Chen was asleep on a friend’s sofa in a Queens apartment when he was taken into custody.
The two correctional officers guarding Chen when he escaped were suspended for 30 days without pay, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Escaped in the early morning
Meanwhile, Naseem Roulack, 21, who uses the alias “Lil Nas,” escaped from Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital in Virginia early in the morning of August 12.
He has not yet been captured.
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At the time of his escape, Roulack was serving a 13-year sentence for aggravated malicious wounding, grand larceny and hit-and-run.
In the two months since his escape, Roulack has been suspected of committing other crimes.
On October 2, the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland said that Roulack was the main suspect in a September 1 carjacking and kidnapping of a woman in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
A poster released by Virginia State Police in the search for Naseem Roulack. Roulack; he is wanted in multiple states after an August 12 escape from a hospital. (Virginia State Police)
Roulack faces additional charges related to that incident, Fox News Digital previously reported.
The U.S. Marshals Service is offering a cash reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to his arrest, Fox 5 DC reported.
Montgomery County, MD, Department of Police is also offering a cash reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to his arrest.
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“This is a significant reward and one that we hope compels people to share additional, actionable information,” said Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) Director Chadwick Dotson in an October 6 press release.
“Bringing Roulack back into custody is our department’s top priority and I continue to appreciate the collaboration from local, state and federal partner agencies”
“Bringing Roulack back into custody is our department’s top priority and I continue to appreciate the collaboration from local, state and federal partner agencies,” he said.
The two officers who were supposed to be guarding Roulack at the time of his arrest had fallen asleep, Richmond-area media reported. They are no longer employed with the VADOC.
Complained of ankle pain — and visited the ER
Two separate homicide suspects also managed to escape from police custody in while in the hospital in recent weeks — and one has still yet to be re-captured.
On September 12, Christopher Haynes, 30, escaped from The George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., shortly before 4 p.m.
Security camera footage of an escapee walking through a backyard. Christopher Haynes remains on the run more than a month after he escaped from a D.C. hospital. (DC Police Department)
Haynes had been arrested earlier that day in connection with an August homicide.
He was taken to the hospital after he complained about ankle pain.
Officers were handcuffing Haynes to his hospital bed when he suddenly assaulted one of the officers and ran, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Classes and events at nearby George Washington University were canceled that evening.
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The Metropolitan Police Department is offering a $30,000 reward for information leading to Haynes’ arrest.
Lastly, homicide suspect Christopher Lee Pray, 39, was re-arrested days after his escape from Oregon State Hospital on the evening of August 30.
Oregon State Hospital is a public psychiatric hospital, according to its website.
Christopher Pray, 39, was charged with a list of violent crimes, including attempted aggravated murder, robbery, assault and a felon win possession of a firearm in connection with a March 2022 incident. He escaped from the hospital only to be re-arrested after getting stuck in the mud. (Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office)
An Oregon State Hospital official spokesperson told Fox 12 Oregon that Pray had been admitted to the hospital earlier that day, and was taken to a local emergency department after he got into an “altercation” with another patient at the hospital.
While he was returning to Oregon State Hospital later that night, Pray gained control of the van and drove it away.
One man was taken to an emergency department after he got into an “altercation” with another patient at the hospital.
Despite being in full restraints — handcuffs, leg shackles and a belly chain — Pray was able to jump into the driver’s seat when the hospital employee exited the van to let him out of the back seat, said Fox 12 Oregon.
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Pray’s time on the run did not last very long. On the morning of Friday, September 1, the Portland Fire & Rescue received reports that someone was stuck in a pond.
When crews arrived on the scene, they found the person still alive but stuck in mud up to the armpits about 75 feet from the pond’s shore, said Fox 12.
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Pray was rescued after an hour, then was taken to Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland.
A hospital employee recognized Pray, who had given a fake name — and he was taken back into custody.
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