Three inmates who escaped Missouri jail captured shoeless, still wearing orange jail suits, police say

(CBS/AP) ST. LOUIS - Authorities said three inmates who escaped from a southeast Missouri jail were found Tuesday hiding in the cab of a truck at a salvage yard, still wearing their orange jail suits but without their shoes.

Missouri Highway Patrol spokesman said 29-year-old Matthew Cook, 23-year-old Kade Stringfellow and 40-year-old Rodney Green were taken to custody around 3:30 p.m. without incident. One of the men previously worked at the salvage yard, which was about five miles from the jail.

"The guys who were out there searching were doing a systematic search and opened up the cab and there the three of them were," Parrott said.

All three men were awaiting trials. Cook and Stringfellow were facing murder charges in separate cases, and Green was facing charges for allegedly shooting and wounding a couple after breaking into their home.

The men walked to get to the salvage yard just east of Poplar Bluff after escaping around 11:30 p.m. Monday through the ceiling of the Butler County Jail. Parrott said authorities hadn't received a tip that the men were there.

"It was just, 'Hey, where would you go if you were on the run?' Someplace familiar," Parrott said. "We have turned over every rock we could find in Poplar Bluff and southeast Butler County today. And that was just one more place for us to go look."

Parrott said the men were being interviewed, and he didn't have any information about new charges.

Sheriff Mark Dobbs said the inmates climbed through air ducts to get out of the jail. He blamed faulty building design -- walls that don't extend all the way up to the ceiling -- that he said he and two previous sheriffs have tried to get fixed.

Jail employees discovered the inmates were missing a short time after the escape, said Frank Casteel, 911 director for Butler County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol, Butler County authorities and police from neighboring counties and towns assisted in the search that extended as far as Little Rock, Ark. Schools in the town limited access and took other precautions, Poplar Bluff School District Superintendent Chris Hon said.

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