WASHINGTON – Both inmates who escaped from the District of Columbia Jail were caught Sunday in two different states, bringing an end to a bizarre manhunt in the Washington area.
The first to be captured was 32-year-old Joseph Leaks, who was apprehended sometime before 2 a.m. at a hotel in Alexandria, Va., several miles outside the city, said Kevin Connolly, a spokesman for the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force.
Ricardo Jones was apprehended by police after a short chase in Seat Pleasant, Md. late Sunday night, D.C. Police Sgt. Joe Gentile said.
Both men were being kept in jail in Alexandria, Va.
Leaks and Jones, 25, are awaiting trial in connection with a shooting last July in the District.
Jones was charged with first-degree murder and Leaks was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and obstruction of justice; both also face weapons charges.
The inmates left the jail by entering an administrative office and breaking a window just before 10:30 a.m. Saturday, said Devon Brown, director of the D.C. Department of Corrections. The jail was put on lockdown after the escape.
"This was not an easy task to accomplish," he said.
It was not clear why the two men had been in that area of the jail.
An officer arriving for work chased the two men, but lost them in the area of a Metro station not far from RFK Stadium. Both men were wearing blue prison jumpsuits.
"This is very, very troubling," said D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the jail. "Nobody should be able to get out of the jail. That's the whole point. This sounds like it was too easy."
Mendelson said he intends to hold hearings into what went wrong as more details emerge about the escape.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox