Convict found hiding on Arkansas prison roof, sent to tougher lockup

Calvin Adams is shown in this Arkansas Department of Correction photo.
Calvin Adams is shown in this Arkansas Department of Correction photo.

A convicted murderer who disappeared from an Arkansas prison Monday was captured and transferred to a maximum security unit Tuesday after his second escape attempt this year, a Department of Correction spokesman said.

Guards at the East Arkansas Regional Unit in Brickeys had already checked the roof at least once when they went Tuesday to look for Calvin Adams, the 49-year-old convicted murderer who was reported missing early Monday morning, said Dina Tyler, spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Correction.

Guards looked closer at a ventilation hood on the roof and found Adams hiding inside, Tyler said. It was not immediately clear if he had been there the whole time he was missing.

Adams was captured unhurt around 8:30 a.m. and, by 1:14 p.m., had been transported to the Varner Supermax Unit near Gould in Lincoln County, Tyler said. The Varner Unit -- a maximum security facility -- imposes far harsher restrictions on inmates than Brickeys.

"In supermax, you stay in your cell all the time with the exception of exercise time one hour five times a week," Tyler said. "You have no contact unless you earn the right to have contact with family. You shower, you eat, you sleep in your cell."

Tyler said that while the critical incident review into Adams' escape is still underway, investigators believe that Adams asked a correctional officer if he could go to the unit's boiler room.

"Even though he wasn't assigned there, he was allowed to go," Tyler said. "There's a roll-up garage door, and we think he left through there."

There's a metal spiral staircase leading to the roof near the boiler room, and Tyler said that although the fence is lined with razor wire, one portion had been "mashed" down to the extent that Adams may have been able to crawl over.

No video footage showed Adams leaving the grounds. No footprints led officers to the fence. The scent dogs picked up no trace of Adams. So, Tyler said, the investigators assumed that he was still in the facility.

"He can't fly. No helicopter came and swooped him up. ... Until you can definitively place someone outside an area, you have to consider that he's still there," Tyler said. "This is a steady process, and you have to remember you're talking about a lot of employees who have been through this many times."

The Arkansas State Police flew drones over the compound several times Monday, and correctional officers lined up in groups of two to walk each floor of the facility, as well as the outdoor areas and the roofs, Tyler said.

The officers searched the roof Monday with no luck, and Tyler said the searchers would likely have begun dismantling the ventilation hoods if they had not found Adams on Tuesday.

Tyler said the critical incident review will also determine whether there was any wrongdoing on the part of a correctional officer, and how the unit can better keep an eye on Adams and violent offenders like him.

Regardless of the review's findings, Tyler said she "is sure there will be some changes at the unit."

"Right now ... there are people in our prison system plotting how they are going to get out, and it's our job to stop them," Tyler said. "Despite all the training, all the security measures, all the technology, every once in a while someone's going to pull it off, and we're going to learn from it. You have to learn."

The unit has medium- and maximum-security facilities. Before his escape attempt, Adams was in the open barracks area of the medium-security facility, Tyler said.

Adams pleaded guilty in 1995 to abducting and fatally shooting banker Richard Austin, 25, and injuring the man's pregnant wife. Adams received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Adams escaped from the Cummins Unit in 2009 with another convicted murderer, and tried to escape earlier this year, according to previous reports. Adams' disciplinary violations this year included being out of place, possession or manufacture of contraband, lying to a staff member and escape.

Tyler said the escape Monday was a more serious offense, but she was not sure if Adams would face criminal charges, adding that the prosecuting attorney would decide that.

Metro on 10/02/2019

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