Publisher gives ride to stranger who turns out to be escapee

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A Mississippi newspaper publisher says he unwittingly gave a car ride to a convicted murderer who had just escaped from a state prison near his home.

Russell Turner of the Greene County Herald says he went home around midday July 5 and a “winded and flustered” stranger was sitting outside. Turner says the man told him he’d wrecked a motorcycle and needed a ride to the hospital where his wife was in labor.

Public notice had not yet been given about the escape.

Turner says he gave the man a ride to get him off the property.

After dropping the man off, Turner learned from an emergency management official that 47-year-old Michael F. Wilson had escaped South Mississippi Correctional Institution.