An Arkansas inmate who sawed through jail bars and escaped with a friend Monday received help from his mother and brother, who furnished him with a hacksaw and cellphone, according to police.
The mother of Quincy Stewart, Charlene Stewart, 55, was arrested and charged Tuesday with furnishing prohibited articles into a detention facility and furnishing implements of escape, following an investigation that led police to believe she supplied her son with the hacksaw and phone.
Quincy Stewart, 36, and Cortez Hooper, 23, are believed to have used the saw’s blades to cut through bars on the jail’s windows, and then use a mattress cover to lower themselves to the ground before scaling fences and escaping into the woods.
Quincy Stewart’s brother, Edward George Dailey, 34, was arrested Wednesday evening and charged with furnishing implements of escape.
“Both of them conspired and did pass on a cellphone and hacksaw blades to Quincy Stewart,” Miller County Sheriff’s chief deputy Duke Schofield said today.
Police and the U.S. Marshals Service are still combing the area, following leads, and interviewing acquaintances of the two men to try and locate them. Authorities believe they were picked up by a vehicle near the jail after they escaped and are still in the Texarkana area.
“Anybody found in the company of either one of these two will go to jail,” Schofield said.
Jail guards checked on the two inmates at 3:15 a.m. and then again at 4:30 p.m., when they discovered them missing. A manhunt ensued, as police dogs were brought in to follow the scents of Stewart and Hooper. The trail ran cold, however, beyond a forest near the jail, along a road where police believe the pair were picked up by a driver. Police found a discarded pile of prison clothes farther along the road, Schofield said.
Charlene Stewart and Dailey were arrested at their Texarkana home on the Texas side of the border city, but will face charges in Texarkana, Ark. Arkansas will seek to have them extradited.
Schofield said Quincy Stewart did use the cellphone his mother and brother passed him just before escaping from the jail, but has not used it since he broke free from the prison.
