Authorities still seeking 4 Georgia inmates considered dangerous
- The men escaped early Monday morning through a damaged window
- One of the men was charged with murdering his ex-girlfriend
- The FBI and U.S. Marshals are helping with the search
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(NewsNation) — Authorities are still looking for the four inmates who escaped from the Bibb County Detention Center in central Georgia early Monday morning.
The men, who escaped through a damaged window and a cut fence, are considered dangerous as the search heads into its third day.
Bibb County Sheriff’s deputies say surveillance video shows a blue Dodge Challenger pull up to the location and help the men flee around 3 a.m. The footage also shows someone near the fence line tampering with it and they appear to have left tools behind which aided the escape.
Local news reports show photos of a giant hole in the window that the inmates chiseled to make room for their escape.
One of the men, Joey Fournier, 52, was charged with the murder of his ex-girlfriend Cynthia Berry and is accused of strangling her to death.
Berry’s daughter, Brianna, fears he could do more harm now that he’s escaped.
“He can’t be trusted. I do feel like he will hurt somebody just to make sure that he doesn’t get caught again,” she told NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield.
The three other men who escaped are Marc Kerry Anderson, a 24-year-old in jail for aggravated assault; Johnifer Dernard Barnwell, 37 and Chavis Demaryo Stokes, 29, who were being held for firearm possession and drug trafficking.
Banfield received an exclusive photo of a suspected contraband drop and a man who broke into the Bibb County Jail last month. DeAndre Hall, the investigator who captured Fournier, joined “Banfield” on Thursday night to discuss his concerns about the jail’s security.
Hall has worked for the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office for 13 years and said that “people freely breaking into jail shows incompetence,”
“The security of the jail has been compromised. It’s one thing to break out of jail. But when you have people feely breaking into the jail, it shows the incompetence of the leadership for the security of the jail,” Hall said.
The FBI and U.S. marshals are helping local authorities with the search. NewsNation reached out to the Bibb County Sheriff’s office for the latest update Thursday but has not received a response.
Authorities have said the men broke out of the oldest part of the jail and the sheriff suggested that staffing issues may have been a factor.
Police are urging anyone with information to call the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office at 478-751-7500.
