MACON, Ga. — Our Bibb County inmates are still on the loose over 60 hours after breaking out of the county jail. The Bibb County Sheriff's office says it's following several tips about the location of four escaped inmates.
We've been covering this story since Monday morning. That's when the Bibb County Sheriff's office launched a manhunt and put Bibb County schools on lockdown.
The FBI, GBI, and U.S. Marshals' Service are all helping with the search. All told, there is $73,000 in reward money for information that leads to the arrest of the escapees.
However, we also have new information explaining how the inmates escaped and what was going on inside the jail that morning.
We've gotten the information from several credible anonymous sources, including former deputies.
We were able to speak to sources on the phone and got several photos of damage of both the inside and outside of the window inmates escaped out of. We went out to the jail Wednesday to inspect the area and we believe these photos are legitimate.
Later Wednesday evening, the Bibb Sheriff's office confirmed the photos we showed you are legitimate and show the scene of the escape.
On Monday, Bibb Sheriff David Davis said they have staffing problems and an old jail.
“I think there's some elements of all of that that played a role in this particular situation here,” he said at Monday's news conference.
So, how did the inmates break out?
“There was some video footage of a vehicle that had been there earlier in the evening that looked like they had been tampering with the fence,” Davis said. “As well as bringing in some items into the enclosed area of the fence.
Sources told us the car was a blue challenger and the driver brought tools into the jail grounds, including power tools.
They say intruders cut spots in two fences that look like a path to a second-floor day room window, and inmates lowered bed sheets to raise the tools up to them.
“We believe they were used by inmates to escape,” Davis said.
Sources say inmates used the tools to chisel through the window frame. One said it looks like it would've taken more than one night's work, and didn't know why guards didn't hear the noise.
Davis acknowledged that.
“There should've been somebody that heard some tampering and there's some indications that somebody might have,” he said.
What was staffing like on the night of the escape? Davis says…
“There was less than 10 people working in the jail,” he said.
However, sources say there were only three on duty inside the jail's seven blocks. Two were working in the new part of the jail, one working in the oldest part of the jail where the escape occurred.
That meant there weren't enough officers to respond to a disturbance anywhere in the jail, one source told us.
They also say to do a headcount on inmates, two deputies must be present in a cell block. With three officers that night, that left at least four cell blocks with no supervision for the entire shift.
A fourth deputy was working master control and could not leave their station.
‘So, that's been an issue for us: staffing– the conditions of the jail,” Davis said.
We reached out to Sheriff Davis to confirm further details such as the staffing early Monday.
So far, he has not responded.
The four inmates still free are Joey Fournier, Marc Anderson, Johnifer Barnwell, and Chavis Stokes.
We want to explain more about how we reported this story.
We rarely use anonymous sources. We like to tell you where our information is coming from and show our sources on camera.
Viewers tell us that builds trust, and credibility in our stories, and we agree.
We make exceptions only when we have confidence in our sources and have made every effort to confirm that information on our own.
In this case, we got details about the escape from a person connected to the jail. They also sent us photos. We checked that information with several other law enforcement sources.
They told us this description of the jail and the escape seemed credible. We visited the jail to check those photos against what we could see for ourselves.
We also gave Sheriff David Davis and his spokesperson a chance to confirm or deny the information we're reporting.
Another reason we're making this exception is the importance of this story. The escape by four prisoners from the jail, one of them is an accused killer. It’s a matter of life and death.
We hope this information helps explain how this happened and prevents more cases like it.
If you have any information on their location, you can call Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 1-877-68CRIME, or two tip lines staffed by the sheriff's office: (478)-310-4502 and/or (478)-301-4485.