Inmate In South Carolina Prison Escapes Using Tools Dropped Off By Drone, Cell Phone

An inmate escaped a South Carolina maximum-security prison with the help of a drone. The individual, Jimmy Causey, was captured Friday after escaping on the 4th of July, officials said.

Causey, 46, escaped in the evening of July 4 from the Lieber Correctional Institution, which is located in Ridgevilee, SC. However, officials didn’t notice he was gone until the next day in the afternoon because he had used a dummy to fool guards.

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Causey managed to break free by using a cell phone, wire cutters and other tools that were dropped off by a drone, officials said according to the New York Times. The inmate used the wire cutter to break through four fences to escape.

“We 100 percent know a cellphone was used or multiple cellphones were used while he was incarcerated, and we believe a drone was used to fly in the tools that allowed him to escape,” the director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, Bryan Stirling, said.

Causey was apprehended by Texas Department of Public Safety in Austin, more than a thousand miles away from the prison he was held at. Authorities received a tip which led to the motel where the inmate was staying. Officials found Causey sleeping in the room and said he did not resist the apprehension. Causey was found with a semiautomatic pistol, a pump shotgun, extra ammunition, four cellphones, and $47,654 in cash.

Stirling criticized federal authorities for not granting state prison officials authority to block cell phone signals at their facilities.

“No longer are people stopped from continuing their criminal ways from behind bars. They are physically incarcerated, but they are no longer virtually incarcerated,” Stirling said in a press conference.

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The inmate was serving a life sentence at the South Carolina prison for kidnapping an attorney. He had also committed other multiple offenses since the early 1990s.

This isn’t the first time Causey escaped. The inmate was on the run for three days in 2005 after he escaped with another inmate. For that time, he didn’t need a mobile phone to escape, but he did use a dummy. The pair hid in a trash bin which was picked by a truck when they escaped. They were caught because they ordered pizza and acted bizarrely towards the delivery woman, who then told her husband. Her spouse then alerted authorities.

Drones have been used for unlawful purposes before. In 2015, two individuals were caught for trying to drop off illicit drugs, including K2 spice and porn to the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md. The men were caught after authorities saw a suspicious vehicle near the prison. Officials found a drone, handgun, as well as contraband and arrested the individuals.