Memphis Blazer Wrote:Can't you guys keep your prisoners locked up. We just had a massive car chase here in Memphis yesterday in which some guy who escaped from an Alabama prison was causing all sorts of havoc here.
That was a result of Franklin County's finest...
From the Times Daily (Florence):
Body ID: Escapee from jail
Second inmate called a 'person of interest'
By Tom Smith
Senior Staff Writer
RUSSELLVILLE -- The body found in a soybean field Thursday morning has been identified as the man who escaped from the Franklin County Jail.
An autopsy revealed the body was Ronald Max Vernon, 54, 1003 First St., Tuscumbia.
Franklin County Sheriff Larry Plott said Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Huntsville made the identification by using fingerprint records.
Plott said authorities are still waiting to learn how Vernon died.
"It appears to be a homicide, and that's the direction the investigation is going at this time,'' he said.
Vernon's body was found at a the edge of a soybean field off Bates Landing Road south of Phil Campbell around 8 a.m. Thursday.
Authorities said the body was badly decomposed.
Deputies had been looking for Vernon and Christopher John Clark, 29, of Memphis, Tenn., since Sunday night when they did not return to jail. They were both on work release and were supposed to report back for confinement Sunday evening.
Plott said Clark was considered a "person of interest'' in the case.
He was arrested Thursday in Memphis after a high-speed chase with police.
According to U.S. District Court documents, Clark faces a federal charge of carjacking. Memphis authorities said that at the time of his arrest in connection to the reported carjacking, Clark told authorities he was a suspect in a homicide in Alabama.
Franklin County investigators traveled to Memphis on Friday in hopes of talking with Clark. Plott said Clark, however, refused to talk and was asking for an attorney.
Reports indicate Vernon has been in Franklin County Jail on theft charges since November 2005.
Clark had been in the county jail since May 17. He was accused of stealing a new Kubota tractor with a roll-type hay bailer from a business on U.S. 43 in Russellville.
Investigators said Clark apparently got inside the fenced area of the business, "hot-wired'' the tractor and then drove through the fence, heading north on U.S. 43. Authorities said he dropped the hay bailer off in a parking lot in Littleville and was later caught driving on Woodward Avenue in Muscle Shoals.
Investigators said Clark had been working in the Russellville area on a construction project.
Franklin County officials said Clark apparently drove a stolen, late-model silver BMW to Memphis. The vehicle was taken Sunday from a business in Littleville. Investigators said the car was near where Clark and Vernon were in the work-release program.
Memphis police located the stolen BMW on Thursday morning.
Plott said Clark is presently only wanted on the escape charges.
Reports indicate Clark was caught in Memphis after he crashed a car he had taken at gunpoint from a gas station.
An affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Memphis on Friday indicated Clark carjacked at least four vehicles.
The Alabama Bureau of Investigation is working with the Franklin County Sheriff's Office on the case.
Tom Smith can be reached at 740-5757 or tom.smith@timesdaily.com.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.