By Scott Wuerz
Belleville News-Democrat
GOLCONDA, Ill. — A pair of fugitives from a Southern Illinois prison camp, including one with ties to the metro-east, have been captured.
According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, Jerrette Reed and Kevin Rivera were on the run since Sunday night from the Dixon Springs Impact Incarceration Program.
They were captured at about 9 a.m. Monday in a field about a mile west of the prison camp.
“They will be escorted back to the facility, fed and given a medical examination before being transferred to a maximum security prison,” Department of Corrections spokesperson Nicole Wilson said in a statement.
The Illinois Impact Incarceration Program is a military-style bootcamp for prisoners that allows them to serve a shorter sentence. Successful participants usually get to go home after about six months as opposed to serving their entire term. If they violate their parole after being released, the convicts can be returned to prison to serve their entire original term.
Searchers didn’t say how the men were able to elude capture for 15 hours while remaining so close to the prison facility.
The two men were discovered to be missing at about 5:50 p.m. Sunday and authorities including the U.S. Marshals Service and the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department searched for them overnight.
Reed was being held on a three-year sentence for meth-related charges out of Randolph County while Rivera was sentenced to five years for conviction on manufacturing and delivering cocaine in Cook County.
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