Escaped inmate tracked to Williamson, then Hays counties
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Officials with the Williamson County Sheriff's Office have confirmed that an escaped Burnet County prisoner stole clothes, a hand gun and a 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe and abandoned the car in Hays County south of Austin.
Earlier Wednesday, law enforcement personnel said they confirmed that fingerprints at the scene of a theft at a residence near Liberty Hill in Williamson County match those of an inmate who escaped from Burnet County Jail Sunday night.
Authorities said clothes, including blue denim jeans, a white T-shirt, a “Texas Star Hockey” ball cap and a .22 caliber hand gun were stolen from the residence on County Road 204 in Williamson County.
Fingerprints recovered at the scene of the burglary were compared with those of Nuana Antonio Fuentes-Sanchez and latent prints positively match those prints on record for Fuentes-Sanchez.
Later in the night, the focus shifted south as law enforcemnt personnel were alerted by another Williamson County property owner of a missing Chevy Tahoe. Some time later the vehicle was reported abandoned in Kyle, south of Austin.
An expert technician with Williamson County Sheriff's Office flown by helicopter to lift fingerprints from the stolen vehicle reported the prints matched Fuentes-Sanchez's, said Williamson County Detective John Foster.
"It is him and he is out of our [Williamson County] area," Foster said. He said Williamson County investigators have been in contact with their counterparts in Hays County, as well as with the Department of Public Safety, which are now taking up the search.
The abandoned car, found in a remote area inside the city limits of Kyle, was stolen from a home on County Road 200 in Williamson County, about a half-mile from the first burglary, Foster said.
Officials fear that Fuentes-Sanchez now may be headed for the Mexico border. "It's looking that way," Foster said.
Meanwhile, three correctional officers at the Burnet County Jail may face disciplinary action for the inmate escape -- an escape that Southwestern Correctional Co-Founder Billy McConnell told The Burnet Bulletin showed a "lapse in judgment."
These latest developments emerged after as an intense debate errupted in Burnet County over the management of the privately operated jail, which opened near residential areas in mid-April.
On Tuesday, Sheriff W.T. Smith tried to answer critics who said the jail break raises questions about the chain-of-command, accountability and lax procedures in the county's privately run 587-bed jail.
At Tuesday's Burnet County Commissioners Court, numerous residents stood up and complained about not being alerted of the escape for 12 hours or more after Fuentes-Sanchez scaled a fence, crossed a rooftop and bolted, apparently wearing prison garb of orange pants, white T-shirt, socks and no shoes. Prison officials said they discovered the convict missing at 10:30 p.m. during a routine "bed check," but later admitted that the criminal escaped more than three hours earlier and residents were not contacted until Monday morning about 7 a.m.
An estimated three dozen residents appeared at Tuesday Commissioners Court meeting to complain about the handling of the escape.
"What really upsets me is no notice," Warren Goff, a retired lawyer and resident of Oak Vista, a neighborhood that abuts the back property line of the jail near County Road 100. Goff is a long-time critic of locating the jail with violent criminals so nearby residential neighborhoods. "If you think the people of Oak Vista are upset ... I'm just the tip of the iceberg," said Goff, before he sat down amid about 15 seconds of applause from people in the crowd.
Smith and county commissioners tried to reassure residents about all the training jail personnel had received, how the sheriff was ultimately responsible for the jail's operations and the extensive ongoing search and stepped-up patrols.
"It's unfortunate that sometimes we have to learn about flaws in the system when the system is breached," Smith said.
For the latest stories, see The Highlander and The Bulletin.
Look first at the management company. Are they the best company for the job? If not, let's get a company who is qualified to do the job and do it right. Let's move forward and make our community safe again and make our citizens feel secure in their homes again.
Next, come election time, let's remember how the County Judge and Commissiones have performed. Have they acted in the best interest of the citizens in our County or have they acted irresponsibly?
I'm really tired of politicians, elected officials and even citizens appointed to various boards (ie. the water board), from the Federal level on down to the local level, assuming that the general public is made up of ignorant, uneducated individuals who can't possibly know what's best for the community and the country. If we are ignorant it is because our elected officials are not being forthcoming with us on the issues.
Remember, government of the people, for the people and by the people. PEOPLE being the key word, not elected officials.
And, next time you see an officer on the street, thank him for putting his life on the line every day to keep our communities safe for very little pay and even less gratitude.
There should be an article featuring the $ being spent on a manhunt thanks to a jail with loopholes that the community strongly disapproved of.