Inmate caught: Lowndes County deputies catch up with escapee

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – A Lowndes County inmate on the run since a Tuesday night escape is back behind bars. WCBI caught up with Lowndes County Sheriff Eddie Hawkins to find out more about how they were able to recapture Terry Brooks.

It’s been a long week for the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office.

“I’m relieved that he is back in custody,” said Hawkins.

Deputies and U.S. Marshals caught up with Terry Lashaun Brooks early Friday morning.

Brooks had been in hiding since escaping from the Lowndes County jail Tuesday night.

“Once we identified the location, we conducted surveillance of the location of where he was at. We conducted a plan and set up a perimeter around the residence several blocks wide. He is known to run and known to be violent. He is a danger to the public and we wanted to make sure that we had enough people in place that if he did run, he would run inside that perimeter,” said Hawkins.

Investigators believed Brooks had help in laying low.

“There was a female that lived in the residence where he was hiding,” said Hawkins.

Hawkins said Georgeanna Harvill was charged with accessory after the fact of an escape for assisting in hiding Brooks and hindering prosecution. She is now the fourth person charged in the investigation.

The sheriff said help from the public helped them make a speedy arrest.

“We received information about the escape, from a passerby. So, one of our citizens saw the inmate coming through the window of the building, drove around to the office, and relayed the message to a deputy. If it was not from the passerby, we may not have been able to arrest the suspect as quickly as we had,” said Hawkins.

Hawkins said now they are focusing on what can be done to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.

“We do have issues that we are looking at to make sure that we do not have this problem again. We have increased some protocols to our staffing to make sure that we do not have anyone trying to cut their way out of a window again,” said Hawkins.

Sheriff Hawkins also believes that there were more people involved in helping Brooks escape.

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