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| Penn. Inmate Escapes |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 10/02/2001 |
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Authorities from at least seven police agencies continue to search central West Virginia for a prisoner from Pennsylvania armed with a pump shotgun who escaped from a transport van. Christopher Paul Savage, 28, of Hastings, near Altoona, faked an illness and convinced officers to stop at a gas station at the Eastpointe Plaza off Interstate 79, said investigator David Wygal, of the Clarksburg Police Department. After an officer removed Savage's handcuffs, he overpowered and slightly injured both officers. Savage then drove the van to a closed restaurant about a quarter-mile from the gas station and fled with the shotgun, Wygal said. The eight other prisoners, who were still wearing shackles and not involved in the plot, were captured in the van at the restaurant or at a nearby post office, a Harrison County dispatcher said. Police concentrated the search in a wooded area about one mile from where the suspect abandoned the van. Police also stopped a CSX coal train after a witness said she saw a man fitting the suspect's description trying to board the moving train. No one was found. Police believe Savage was not wearing shackles. He is white, about 5-feet-11, and weighs 145 pounds. He has brown hair, hazel eyes, a two-day growth of beard, tattoos on his left arm and was wearing a dark shirt and jeans. The van was driven by employees of TransCor America, said Steve Canterbury, executive director of the West Virginia Regional Jail Authority. TransCor is based in Nashville, Tenn., and is a private prisoner transportation company, said Jon Walker, TransCor's vice president of marketing. Savage was headed for the Cambria County Jail in Pennsylvania, said Keldeen Stambaugh, spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole. Savage had been picked up at an Indiana jail, Stambaugh said. |
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