PORTSMOUTH, Va. - An inmate who escaped from the Portsmouth City Jail is now back in custody.
Sheriff Deputies found 36-year-old Devon Jones at the Walmart parking lot on Frederick Boulevard. Residents tell us they feel at ease now, but they have many unanswered questions about the escape.
"It does worry me because, in Portsmouth, you already have enough danger going on. To know that there's more going on, people are just escaping places where they should be held captive, it does raise some worries," Collin Tibbils, a Portsmouth resident said.
Residents like Collin Tibbils are disturbed after learning that an inmate was able to escape the city jail. Although he is now back in custody, he escaped Thursday night while being escorted to an area of the jail where he could make a phone call, causing Tibbils to question the security of the jail.
"People are arrested and put in jail in most of the time for reasons so they need to start doing a good job and make sure that doesn't happen and we won't have to worry about things like that here," Tibbils said.
Court records say Jones was being held on various charges, including strangulation and abduction. An employee of the Walmart where Jones was captured says he's thankful they didn't cross paths.
"It got me a little bit on high alert because I walk here from home, so I didn't know if I was going to run into him or not," Lamonta Peterson, a Walmart employee, said.
Jones was found an hour before Peterson came into work.
"I'm very happy he is back in custody because who's to say he wouldn't came into the store and caused a commotion," Peterson said.
The investigation of his escape is ongoing and we will continue to keep you updated as we learn more details.
