Convicted killer Paul Dewayne Grice was a trusty at the Dallas County jail before a failed jailbreak in October and again before making a successful escape last weekend.
Grice, 38, was gone about 33 hours before his arrest Monday morning in Monticello in Drew County when he met with a distant cousin. The relative has not been arrested.
"He was stressed, he was depressed, and he thought the answer was to get out of here," Dallas County Sheriff Stan McGahee said of Grice.
Prosecuting Attorney David Butler said Monday that Grice escaped the jail when he made it to the outside yard, stacked two air-conditioning units next to the fence and threw a blanket over the razor wire as protection from cuts as he went over.
Grice remains in solitary confinement in the Dallas County jail. McGahee said Grice would have been taken to the Arkansas Department of Correction already if there wasn't more work to be done on the case. Grice will be charged with felony escape within the next week to 10 days, Butler said.
"In this particular case, we're not in a real emergency," the prosecutor said. "He's already in jail. He's not going anywhere."
After Grice's escape, he made his way from Dallas County to Drew County with the help of two people. One of those people, Stephanie Smith, has been arrested and has been in the Ouachita County jail since Sunday. Smith, 32, will be charged with felony hindering apprehension or prosecution, Butler said.
Smith could face five to 20 years in prison. She had her first court appearance Tuesday but hasn't been arraigned, Butler said. It's unknown whether bail has been set.
"This was a conspiracy," McGahee said.
Grice has spent nearly half his life in the Arkansas Department of Correction, but it didn't take him long after his arrival at the Dallas County jail to gain the sheriff's trust enough to be designated as a trusty.
A trusty is an inmate who is granted special privileges and benefits or accorded certain duties by virtue of having been recognized by sheriff's officials as being trustworthy.
McGahee said all inmates are treated the same when they arrive, regardless of their criminal backgrounds. McGahee said an inmate can become a trusty through a system of communication where jailers get to know the prisoner.
"It would be pretty much like hiring someone at entry level, then watching them, observing them and elevating them," McGahee said.
Grice already had been designated a trusty in October when he first tried to escape.
Grice was charged with conspiring to escape and furnishing, possessing or using prohibited articles, specifically a cellphone, in an incident Oct. 10 that involved his mother, Judy Kay Grice, and his girlfriend, according to an affidavit. After police confiscated a cellphone from Grice, it began receiving texts from Judy Grice in reference to an escape plan.
Deputies arrested Grice's mother and girlfriend down the street from the jail where they were to meet with Grice. The girlfriend was not charged.
McGahee said he had since "counseled" Grice about his escape attempt, but because it was thwarted McGahee said he thought Grice could again achieve trusty status, which he did.
The sheriff said he had considered Grice a "good inmate."
Grice was a certified mechanic and often worked on police vehicles. He also helped prepare food and wash dishes, as well as other "porter-type duties," such as emptying the trash and mopping the floors, the sheriff said.
"He was always 'yes sir,' and 'no sir,' and be where he was supposed to be and do what he was supposed to do," McGahee said.
Grice pleaded guilty in 1998 to second-degree murder, aggravated robbery, residential burglary and theft of property in Jefferson County. In 1996, Grice and another man robbed James Banks Rushing, shot him and dumped his body in a rural area outside Star City, according to court documents.
He was paroled in July 2014 and remained on probation until he was arrested in September 2015 on charges of aggravated residential burglary and being a felon in possession of a firearm, records show.
Bradley County Chief Deputy Herschel Tillman said Grice broke into the home of a Bradley County woman who was once his live-in girlfriend. He was being held in Dallas County because Bradley County has only a 24-hour holding facility. McGahee said Grice was being held until there was space for Grice at the Arkansas Department of Correction.
"He reoffended with a lesser charge than murder, but sin is sin, as they say," McGahee said.
Grice was arraigned in Bradley County on the most recent charges Feb. 1, about a week before his escape. Pretrial hearings were scheduled for March 7 and April 18, Tillman said.
"I kind of think that's when his thought process changed," McGahee said. "I think that's what caused the event this weekend. I think the realization triggered something in him."
Metro on 02/10/2016