Mississippi prison staff suspended for failing to report a double murderer had escaped until a day later

This is Wilson’s third jail break

Staff at a Mississippi prison are facing punishment after waiting more than a day to alert the state's Department of Corrections that a double murderer had escaped.

The Associated Press reported that Michael Floyd Wilson, 51, was captured in Harrison County, about 130 miles (210km) from the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility outside Jackson.

About a dozen employees at the prison were suspended for their failure to report the escape.

This is Wilson's third jail break; he managed to free himself from a county jail in 2001 when he was held on a burglary charge, and later escaped from the South Mississippi Correctional Institution in 2018.

During that escape, Wilson obtained civilian clothes and managed to convince someone to take him to the hospital after claiming he'd been in a motorcycle accident and that he needed to get to his wife, who he said was in labour, at the hospital.

The individual who gave him a ride was a local newspaper publisher who was unaware Wilson was an inmate because the prison had not informed the public of an escape.

Wilson was eventually caught inside a car that had been reported stolen from a neighbouring county. The car reportedly ran out of gas while Wilson was driving.

Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said that Wilson was going to be transferred to a different prison, adding that "he'll have a hard time getting away from us there."

State officials claimed that prison staff did not inform them of Wilson's escape until more than a day after he broke free. During that time Wilson was treated at a hospital twice under a fake name for cuts he suffered climbing over the prison's razor-wire fence.

"We want to assure the public that we won't make those mistakes again because we have taken corrective action," Mr Cain said Tuesday. "We're shocked, upset and appalled that he got away."

After it was revealed that Wilson escaped, state and federal law enforcement joined in a multi-state search.

Wilson was convicted to two life sentences in September 2015 when he was found guilty of murdering two people in 2014.

Investigators revealed that after Wilson escaped the prison, he went to a nearby subdivision and told someone that he was an FBI agent and was bleeding because he'd been in a motorcycle accident. The person called 911 and Wilson was picked up by an ambulance.

He was released from the hospital on Saturday, but ended up back in the hospital because he was still bleeding. He was picked up by officers and gave them a fake name. They called another ambulance and he was taken to another back to the hospital he had just left.

"He must be really, really convincing," Department of Corrections spokesman Leo Honeycutt said. "I mean, he should be an actor."