CNN
The search for two of three inmates who escaped from an Indiana prison has been called off, authorities said Tuesday.
One of the inmates, 48-year-old Charles Smith, was captured Monday. The other two -- a convicted murderer and a convicted rapist -- remain at large after Sunday’s escape from the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana.
The Indiana State Police called off the formal search because no sign of the men had been found, Indiana Department of Correction spokesman John Schrader told CNN Tuesday. He said the search ended Monday evening.
“We don’t know where to look,” he added.
Officials have gone back to relying on leads, possible sightings and public tips in the investigation, Schrader said.
The inmates apparently escaped through underground tunnels beneath the prison, and authorities are still trying to determine how they gained access to them.
“At this stage, we don’t know exactly how that happened,” said Douglas Garrison, the chief of communications for the Indiana Department of Correction.
Schrader said the prison is on lockdown.
Iron bars and gates that were broken in the tunnels have been been repaired, and officials are looking at additional security in those areas, he said. Two of the escaped inmates had worked in the tunnels as assistants to maintenance employees, Schrader said.
The prison was built around 1860, and the tunnels -- lined with brick and concrete -- carry pipe chases and sewer lines, Schrader explained.
Photos from the department show that someone smashed through iron bars blocking access to the tunnel and made a large hole in a brick wall, large enough to crawl through.
“Right now, there’s no sightings. We’re just trying to talk with people that we know they know, trying to develop leads as to where these guys may be going,” Garrison said. The men have relatives in Indiana.
Smith, who was serving time on a murder charge, was captured Monday in Grand Beach, Michigan, near the Michigan vacation home of Richard Daley, the mayor of Chicago, Illinois.
Grand Beach is in southwestern Michigan, about eight miles from the prison in Indiana. The men escaped Sunday.
Daley told reporters he was in his vacation home with his wife and three grandchildren at the time of the capture.
A Chicago police officer assigned to Daley’s security detail spotted Smith and a man who may have been another escapee walking near the house at 5:30 a.m., the mayor said. Smith was captured and handed over to the Grand Beach Police Department, and the other man escaped into the woods.
Smith escaped from the prison with convicted murderer Mark Booher, 46, and convicted rapist Lance Battreal, 45, Schrader said.
Smith was sentenced in 1999 to a 95-year sentence for murder. Battreal was sentenced in 1998 to 50 years for rape, criminal confinement and stalking. Booher was sentenced in 1999 to 65 years for murder and robbery.
In addition to State Police, the La Porte County Sheriff’s Department, local law enforcement agencies and staff from nearby correctional facilities had been aiding the search.