A third inmate who escaped last month from a central Georgia county jail was taken back into custody on Sunday, authorities said, while a fourth – a murder suspect – remains at large.
After a nearly monthlong manhunt, 37-year-old Johnifer Dernard Barnwell, was taken into custody just after 8 a.m. Sunday at a home in Augusta, Georgia, the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. That’s approximately 124 miles from Macon, where Barnwell and three other men escaped from the Bibb County Detention Center on October 16.
When Barnwell was found, officers from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office Gang Unit, assisted by the FBI, recovered large amounts of drugs, the sheriff’s office said Sunday.
At the time of his escape, Barnwell was being held for the US Marshals Service after being convicted on federal charges related to the “armed distribution of large quantities of drugs,” per the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Georgia.
Barnwell’s apprehension Sunday comes after authorities previously said they had caught Chavis Demaryo Stokes, 29, and Marc Kerry Anderson, 25, in Montezuma, Georgia, and Atlanta, respectively. Both escaped from the Bibb County Detention Center with Barnwell and 52-year-old Joey Fournier, who was being held on a murder charge and is still on the run.
The four inmates escaped through a damaged window in an interview room and a cut in a fence, the sheriff’s office said previously. Authorities said someone driving a blue Dodge Challenger in the parking lot near the fence appeared to aid the escape.
Fournier is described as a White man with gray hair and blue eyes, standing at 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighing about 140 pounds. Authorities from several agencies have offered rewards totaling $17,000 for his recapture.