Donnie Russell Rowe, 43, and Ricky Dubose, 24, have been captured in Tennessee after their shocking Tuesday escape in which police say they overpowered and murdered two guards.
Two Georgia inmates who killed their guards and escaped from a prison bus before rampaging across the US have been captured in Tennessee.
Donnie Russell Rowe, 43, and Ricky Dubose, 24, were caught on Thursday in Christiana, Tennessee, after taking an elderly couple hostage in their home, police claim.
They then stole the couple’s truck and took police on a car chase, crashed the truck and continued the pursuit on foot before being caught, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Nelly Miles said.
On Thursday, around 2: 30pm they entered the home of an elderly couple in the city and held them at gunpoint, CBS 46 reported.
‘They wrestled with the man and took control of him, ‘ said Bedford County Sheriff Austin Swing. ‘They said they put guns to both of their heads.’
The convicts said they would be dead within 24 hours, the hostages later told police.
They held the terrified couple for three hours, until they decided to go on the run again.
The men initially wanted to make the elderly woman drive as their hostage, but when her car failed to start they stole the couple’s Jeep instead.
They were spotted within an hour, resulting in a potentially deadly chase of up to 100mph down the Interstate 24.
During the chase, the prisoners – who had stolen guns from the elderly couple, in addition to the pistols they had taken from the prison guards – allegedly fired shots at the cops before crashing their vehicle.
They then ran off on foot but were stopped at a home on Pruitt Road in Christiana, where they gave themselves up to police.
Traffic will be diverted on Interstate 24 east in Rutherford County until about 11pm while police process the scene, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said.
Rowe was serving life without parole when he and Ricky Dubose somehow escaped from a prison truck cage, killed two guards and fled with their pistols early Tuesday.
Dubose, who has elaborate tattoos on his face and neck, began a 20-year sentence in 2015.
Both have a long list of crimes to their name, including armed robbery – and have only racked up more in the last few days.
Immediately after the killings early Tuesday, the pair carjacked a driver who happened to pull up behind the bus on rural state Highway 16 in Putnam County, southeast of Atlanta.
They took off with the Honda driver’s phone, leaving 31 other inmates locked in the bus with the two dead guards, and were gone by the time help arrived.
Hours later, authorities converged on the small city of Madison, about 25 miles to the north, where they determined the fugitives had ransacked a house around 10.30am on Tuesday.
Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said the fugitives took some food and likely some clothes, since they left their prison uniforms behind.
Authorities put up roadblocks, but the following day they discovered that the pair had allegedly stolen a white Ford F250 pickup from an industrial site nine miles from the burglary.
The Honda was found later, intentionally hidden in woods not far from the burglarized house, Sills said.
Sills described the fugitives as violent repeat offenders and extremely dangerous, having taken the guards’ 9mm pistols.
‘They just murdered two corrections officers in a brutal fashion, ‘ Sills said. ‘They’re not concerned with anything regarding human life.’
Both escaped inmates were serving long sentences for armed robbery and other crimes.
The Department of Corrections website indicates Rowe has been serving life without parole since 2002, and Dubose began a 20-year sentence in 2015.
The inmates have been cellmates more than once in Georgia’s prisons, had known each other for ‘quite a while’ and may have planned the escape together, Department of Corrections Assistant Commissioner Ricky Myrick said.
He wasn’t sure whether they were cellmates at Baldwin State Prison immediately prior to the escape.
The guards killed in the escape were Baldwin State Prison officers Sergeants Christopher Monica and Curtis Billue.
The pair were driving 33 inmates between prisons when Rowe and Dubose overpowered them and then used the their own guns to kill them about 6.45am on Tuesday, authorities have said.
The other inmates have been questioned and a camera on the bus recorded the guards being shot, but corrections officials have not explained to the public how the pair managed to get through the inmate compartment’s normally locked door.
‘They were inside the caged area of the bus, ‘ Sills said.
‘How they got through the locks and things up to that area I do not know.’
The sheriff said he’s watched the bus video on a cellphone, and couldn’t immediately tell which inmate fired the fatal shots.
Monica, 42, and Billue, 58, were both transfer sergeants at Baldwin State Prison.
Monica had been with the Georgia Department of Corrections since October 2009 and Billue since July 2007.
A GoFundMe page set up in the wake of Monica’s death has now revealed he was working extra shifts to cover for his wife, who was ill and struggling to work.
‘He was a great man who has left a family behind, ‘ the page read.
‘Chris was taking on extra shifts at work so his wife wouldn’t have to work since she recently has some worsening health issues.
‘These funds will help his wife, daughters, and grandchildren who all lived with him and who he supported in so many ways.’
The page has a fundraising goal of $20,000.
