Escaped Shoelace Killer Tripped Up by Authorities
Two Texas inmates — one accused of strangling someone with a shoelace — enjoyed little more than two days worth of freedom before U.S. Marshalls busted them roughly 20 miles from the prison they escaped — and neither man was wearing any pants.
RELATED: Shoelace Killer Sprints to Freedom from Texas Prison
The 45-year-old capital murder suspect Brian Allen Tucker (above at left) and 40-year-old suspected burglar John Marlin King (right) were busted in Cooper, Texas on Thursday, about 21 miles north of Hopkins County Jail, according to WFAA-8. Tucker and King snuck through the Hopkins County Jail female recreation yard Tuesday morning before sneaking through a gap between the gate and the fence and running to freedom. King is "accused of strangling a man to death with shoe laces," writes the Dallas Morning News. "They were only in a T-shirt and boxers," when captured, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. They stripped out of their jailhouse skivvies near a railroad after making their escape.
RELATED: Feds Bust Amazingly Connected Prison Drug Ring
The two men made the most of their time out of the clink. The police in Sulphur Springs, the town closest to the prison, responded to a break in Wednesday that saw a black Saturn Vue and a .22 caliber gun go missing. Police Chief Jim Bayuk told WFAA-8 he was "fairly certain" King and Tucker were the culprits. Sure enough, Thursday afternoon they showed up at an acquaintance's house of King's who wasn't pleased with the visit from wanted fugitives, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reports. "The woman called police right after they left her home," they write. Sure enough, they were driving in a black sport utility when authorities picked them up. That Chief Bayuk was right again! The tip came in just a few hours after Texas authorities posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to their arrest. A funny coincidence, that.
