Fugitive murder suspect caught in wooded area nine days after escaping Pennsylvania gym using bedsheets
Escaped murder suspect Michael Burham has been captured nine days after he escaped from a Pennsylvania prison on July 6 tied to a bed sheet.
A Pennsylvania prison inmate who sent authorities on a weeks-long manhunt when he escaped nine days ago has been captured.
Michael Burham escaped from the Warren County Jail shortly before midnight on July 6, tied to a bed sheet, as an emergency search began to locate the suspect in the murder.
Horrified authorities described him as a ‘dangerous’ prisoner with self-taught survival skills and was held on charges of murder and rape.
A source with knowledge of the effort to capture him told CNN that he was eventually apprehended in a wooded area near Warren, Pennsylvania.
A Warren County official added that they are ‘preparing an isolation cell’ for the inmate, but they plan to move him out of the jail by Sunday. Authorities did not say where he would be transferred.
Michael Burham escaped from the Warren County Jail in Pennsylvania on July 6
The prison is in a remote part of the state 70 miles southeast of Lake Erie, next to the Allegheny National Forest.
During a week-long search for the suspected killer, police found a trail of evidence that eventually led them to a wooded area.
The supplies found included a bag of clothes, food and items ‘that may be needed if they try to survive in the forest’, police said.
Burnham is facing several criminal charges from behind bars, and investigators are reportedly working to link him to the shooting death of a woman in May.
He has an extensive military background, spending more than 10 years in the Army Reserves where he served as a water treatment specialist.
Police are investigating whether Burham got help from a prison officer during his daring escape.
Michael Burham was described by police as extremely dangerous and a self-taught survivor
The inmate owns a disturbing track record of crimes that landed him behind bars, with authorities insisting he was extremely dangerous when he escaped.
Last month, New York’s Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt said Burham was the prime suspect in the May 11 shooting of Kala Hodgkin, 34, and a related arson in Jamestown, New York.
At the time of her death, she was wanted on a separate charge of rape.
Accused of shooting Hodgkin to death, he went on the run for two weeks and evaded capture while the police accused him of kidnapping an elderly couple.
He was finally arrested on May 24 and taken into custody.
After his escape on July 6, investigators said he was leaving a trail of ‘breadcrumbs’ in his wake, which eventually led to his arrest.
‘He may be a survivalist, but so are US marshals. Once that noose starts to tighten and they make that mistake, it’s all over,’ retired U.S. Marshals Service commander Lenny DePaul told the New York Post at the time.
Burham bailed himself out of the Warren County Jail (pictured) by climbing onto exercise equipment and then off a metal gated roof.
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