Colorado bank robber Jewel Gist convicted in 2016 escapes from prison near Rifle

The Colorado Department of Corrections says a minimum security inmate who should be considered dangerous is on the run. Jewel Gist, 54, escaped from the Rifle Correctional Facility this week.

He has been in custody since he was convicted for robbing a bank in Limon in eastern Colorado 9 years ago.

Gist was last seen on the grounds of the facility in Garfield County on Monday at 9 a.m. He was wearing his prison-issued green shirt and pants.

Gist was a resident of Modesto, California, when authorities said he robbed the First National Bank of Hugo-Limon on July 31, 2014. After the crime, surveillance photographs of him were sent to law enforcement officers and he was spotted by a state trooper driving a U-Haul van on Interstate 70 near Watkins. He stopped when police approached "but then got out of the U-Haul van and ran across four lanes of I-70 into a cornfield," a law enforcement spokesperson told CBS Colorado at the time.

"Multiple agencies responded to the area, a search was conducted, including canine units, but they were unable to locate the suspect," the spokesperson said. Authorities were then able to identify the suspect as Gist through photographs, fingerprints and DNA. He was eventually captured in West Virginia after a nationwide warrant was issued for his arrest. Two years later he was sentenced to 16 years in prison on an aggravated robbery charge.