Michael Wilson, 51, has broken out of prison two previous times over the last two decades. In his third and most recent escape, Wilson was captured by authorities after they say the car he had stolen ran out of gas.
Mississippi inmate and convicted murderer, known as “Pretty Boy Floyd,” was captured by the authorities this week after the car he had stolen ran out of gas. This is his third prison break in the past two decades, according to published news reports.
Michael Floyd Wilson, 51, was captured in Harrison County, approximately 130 miles from the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility (CMCF) on Tuesday after his prison escape Saturday morning.
The department did not learn about Wilson’s prison break until Sunday. One of the gloves Wilson was wearing got stuck in the razor-wire fence, which apparently alerted authorities to his escape, according to the Department of Corrections spokesman Leo Honeycutt, CBS News reported.
"We dropped the ball because we didn't know he had escaped," Honeycutt said of the department.
Corrections Commissioner Burl Cain said at the Tuesday press conference that Wilson escaped at 6:30 a.m. Saturday when he snaked over the prison’s 12-foot razor-wire fence. Cain went into the timeline of his escape, laying out a series of events that sounded like the plot of an action movie. Wilson managed to go undetected using an alias and was treated in a hospital twice for the injuries he sustained from the wire fence, according to Cain.
Wilson “must be really, really convincing. I mean, he should be an actor,” the spokesperson said.
There was a multi-state search for Wilson before he was captured on Tuesday. The commissioner described the details of his capture as “interesting.”
“He was riding in a car with a lady that had picked him up to give him a ride and when she realized that he [Wilson] was probably going to hijack her because he kept on looking at the gas gauge,” Cain said.
He said there was “an altercation and Wilson reportedly took the car away from her,” and said the woman ran down the road, found a ride and then informed the police what happened.
“Police find the car and try and purse the car. And he starts to speed up and just when he starts to away from police, Wilson he runs out of gas," Cain said. “He ran out of gas just like we ran out of time with him. He is captured. He is back.”
Cain said Wilson will now be moved to Walnut Grove, which is another prison. "He’ll have a hard time getting away from us there," he said.
During the press conference, Cain acknowledged that there was a "big glitch” on what happened at CMCF and that it was “unacceptable.” He said that 12 employees will be facing disciplinary action in connection to Wilson's escape.
“We made a mistake when he escaped onto the hospital that morning to do breathing treatments and so forth. What more can I say. We try and be as transparent as we can with the press,” Cain said. “We will ensure to the public we won’t make those mistakes again.”
He said the incident is being thoroughly investigated.
This escape was Wilson's third from custody. In 2001, Wilson got out of a county jail where he was being held on a burglary charge. In 2015, he was sentenced to two life sentences for the murder of two people he beat to death on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2014. In 2018, Wilson escaped from South Mississippi Correctional Institution in Leakesville and was captured two days later in Ocean Springs, which is about 70 miles away, CBS News reported.
