The Associated Press
RED OAK, Iowa — A woman helped an inmate escape from a small-town jail early Monday by displaying a sawed-off shotgun and fleeing with the man into a nearby neighborhood, authorities said.
No shots were fired, Montgomery County Sheriff Donald Updegrove said.
Jessica Ann Johnson, 24, went to the county jail under the pretense of bailing out another inmate, Updegrove said. The inmate was identified as Stuart Sellers, 33.
“Once she was allowed inside the foyer area, she displayed a sawed-off shotgun and ordered the jailer to let her inside the main area and also to open up the B cell where Stuart Sellers was located,” Updegrove said.
Johnson and Sellers then locked the jailer inside the cell and walked out through the main entrance, he said. No one was injured.
The search for the two focused on Red Oak, a town of 6,200 people in southwest Iowa near the lines with Missouri and Nebraska.