Escaped Murderer Is Caught

Convicted killer Clifford Jones, who eluded authorities for about 48 hours after escaping from a maximum-security prison, has been recaptured.

Jones, 33, was caught alive at about 1:25 p.m. Tuesday. He surrendered after a guard spotted him in a tree about three miles from the prison near Huntsville.

Prison spokesman Glen Castlebury says Jones is "reported not much worse for wear considering all he's been through."

Jones spent two nights hiding in the East Texas swamps and woods. Police in helicopters spotted him about 3 a.m. Tuesday morning, but the helicopter couldn't land because of the terrain and couldn't remain in the area because it was running low on fuel.

Some 300 searchers on horseback, in boats, using dogs and in helicopters hunted a rugged 10-square-mile area looking for the escaped prisoner.

Jones had been serving a 20-year prison term since July 1987. While in prison, he was sentenced to an additional six years for assaulting a guard.

Roadblocks went up several miles from the prison and corrections guards lined the main roads in hopes of catching a glimpse of Jones if he emerged from the brush.

The prison shares property with the Ellis Unit, where last Thanksgiving seven condemned killers broke out of death row. One of those escapees, Martin Gurule, was found a week later, dead in a creek, and an autopsy showed he had drowned. The other six surrendered after guards opened fire.

While being escorted to a recreation area on Sunday, Jones slipped one hand out of his handcuffs and threatened to kill a female guard with the restraint, police said.

The 5-foot-6, 180-pound Jones scaled a 25-foot chain-link fence to the roof of the yard, then fell to another fence that covers a walkway and jumped eight feet to the ground.

He reached a 12-foot fence equipped with sensing devices and climbed over it. The sensors alerted another guard, who fired at him with a tear gas shell.

Jones then climbed a 16-foot camera tower to jump over a second 12-foot fence covered with four coils of razor wire.

By then, a guard who patrols the perimeter of the prison spotted him and fired at him twice but missed. Jones kept running toward a creek bottom and took off his clothes and shoes, apparently to foil tracking dogs.