PORTLAND, Ore. -- A man convicted of five murders was recaptured Thursday a few hours after he and a bank robber tunneled and climbed their way out of the Lewis County, Wash., jail.
William Perry Jackson, 27, was arrested without incident walking down a street in southeast Portland near the city limits of Milwaukie, his hometown, sheriff's deputies said.
The arrest came about eight hours after he escaped from the southwest Washington jail with bank robber Gus A. Turner, 36, of Portland, who is still at large, authorities said.
Jackson was reportedly unarmed and had changed out of his jail uniform. He was taken to the Clackamas County Jail in Oregon City.
Lewis County Undersheriff Randy Hamilton said the men tunneled through a plaster wall, climbed through a crawl space and out a skylight onto the courthouse roof, then used a rope made out of blankets to lower themselves to the ground shortly after 2 a.m.
Jackson had been awaiting his return to the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem after pleading guilty to the Aug. 7, 1980, beating death of Theodore May, 78, whose bludgeoned body was found in the garage of his Chehalis home.
Turner was awaiting transfer to the Washington Corrections Center at Shelton to begin serving his sentence for a robbery of the Centralia branch of Lewis Federal Savings and Loan.
