Employee on leave over Md. murder suspect's release

BALTIMORE - The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Corrections has placed an employee on administrative leave after the department says a lapse in protocol led to the accidental release of a murder suspect from a Baltimore jail.

Thirty-year-old Rodriquez Purnell was erroneously released Friday from the Maryland Reception, Diagnostic and Classification Center, where he was awaiting a retrial in the 2013 shooting death of 27-year-old Terrance Rheubottom. His first trial ended in a hung jury. Purnell also had been convicted of assaulting a corrections worker.

The 30-year-old remains at large.

According to CBS Baltimore, the department didn't become aware of the error until Sunday, two days after Purnell's release, when they received a call from Rheubottom's family saying Purnell had been spotted on the streets.

"There ain't no way in the world you can just let somebody slip out of your hands like that," Terrell Rheubottom, the murder victim's brother, told the station.

The department said Wednesday one employee has been suspended with pay. The department said its investigation is focused on the release process and that a lapse in procedures led to Purnell's discharge, but would not provide further details.

In the meantime, Maryland State Delegate John Cluster says he's outraged and is demanding state police conduct an independent investigation into what went wrong.

Anyone with information on Purnell's whereabouts is asked to call authorities immediately.