April 18 (UPI) — Police in Illinois arrested two convicted felons who escaped from a Wisconsin prison and turned up Friday morning at a homeless shelter, local authorities said.
Rockford, Ill., police said they took James Newman, 37, and Thomas Deering, 46, into custody “without incident” early Friday.
The two men escaped from Columbia Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison, in Portage, Wis., on Thursday. Rockford police said they received a call from a non-profit shelter, Miss Carly’s, around 8:30 a.m. after the men showed up there seeking food.
A post on Miss Carly’s Facebook page said the men arrived at the shelter “shivering, frozen, wearing prison-issue sweats and thermal shirts.”
“They looked just like the kind of people we want to help … but they weren’t.”
The representative of Miss Carly’s said they recognized the two men from reports about their escape. They offered the two men coffee to stall them while the shelter called the Rockford Police Department.
The department said it’s working to extradite the two men back to Columbia Correctional Facility.
Newman was convicted on firearm, kidnapping and theft charges and Deering was convicted for sexual assault, kidnapping and battery.
