Convicted Murderer Disguises Himself As Sheep, Crawls In Grass To Escape Prison

An inmate from Bolivia's maximum security prison was caught red-handed as he tried to escape by disguising himself as sheep.

José Luis Callisaya Diaz, who was convicted of homicide and is serving jail time in the Chonchocoro prison, was discovered crawling through a grassy patch surrounding the prison with sheepskin wrapped around himself, according to the New York Post.

Chonchocoro, also known as San Pedro Prison or El penal de San Pedro, is the country's largest prison with maximum security located in La Paz, SotNews reported.

Guards at the prison noticed that Diaz, who also goes by the alias of "El Araña," was not in his cell on Feb. 4.

A manhunt was launched to locate Diaz and it was found that he had somehow managed to slip past the guards and out into the grassland surrounding the prison. He reportedly attempted to crawl his way to freedom with a fuzzy white coat on his back, hoping to pass as a farm animal.

Photos from the attempted prison escape obtained by NYPost showed the inmate on all fours in a field with the fleece coat on.

Diaz was caught and returned to his cell, and is expected to face legal action and disciplinary measures for the attempted escape.

Prison officials acknowledged the incident and said Diaz, who is currently serving a 15-year jail sentence for homicide, tried to take advantage of the weather to carry out his escape plan.

"We inform the Bolivian population that prison security police officers from the San Pedro de Chonchocoro Penitentiary Center prevented the escape of prisoner José Luis Callisaya Diaz (alias El Araña), who took advantage of the inclement weather to try to flee through one of the walls of the external perimeter of the prison," the Director of the Penitentiary Regime Juan Carlos Limpias was quoted saying.

An unrelated incident was reported in 2020 after an inmate in Chicago's Cook County Jail attempted to escape wearing a face mask and pretending he was another detainee who was set to be discharged. Jahquez Scott, 21, exchanged his identity with a fellow inmate, 28-year-old Quintin Henderson, and had promised to pay him $1,000 for the same. Scott then managed to escape wearing a face mask but was later recaptured.