Howard County police took escaped prisoner David Watson into custody late Wednesday night, after searching for him since April 28. He had escaped Maryland’s maximum-security psychiatric hospital in Jessup, Md.
Details were sparse, but police said that Watson pushed a guard to the ground late Wednesday and ran into the woods as he was being unloaded from a van, police said. Officials said Watson had somehow gotten out of handcuffs and a waist chain.
Police said officials had received a report of a possible sighting Wednesday morning in the area in Jessup where Watson had escaped. About 9:30 a.m., someone called 911 , apparently after seeing a man behind a building near the railroad tracks in the 8200 block of Dorsey Run Road, police said in a statement.
The caller said the man was wearing a white hard hat and a safety vest, and he ran, according to the statement.
Soon afterward, officers found that a hard hat and safety vest had been stolen from a storage building about a mile away.
This photo released by the Howard County Police Department shows David M. Watson. (Howard County Police Department) (AP/AP) About 9:40 p.m. Wednesday, a police team captured Watson in the woods near Dorsey Run Road. The officers, who were using night vision equipment, found Watson hiding in an 18-inch drainage pipe a few hundred yards from where he was sighted Wednesday morning, the police statement said.
Officers said they had checked the pipe earlier in the day, but rechecked it after dark, and found Watson trying to hide inside. Police searched the area with helicopters, bloodhounds, tactical teams and the U.S. Marshals Service, Maryland State Police, Anne Arundel County Police and other resources. Police said Watson surrendered and was found to be in good condition.
Watson is serving a sentence of more than 100 years in a correctional facility in Delaware for attempted murder. The statement said he also has been charged in Wicomico County, Md., for attempted murder of law enforcement officers, and in Howard County for escape.
This story has been updated.