By C1 Staff
LIBERTY, Texas — A Liberty County Jail inmate who loved Sudoku who escaped two weeks ago may be hiding out in Houston, according to authorities.
The Chronicle reports that Phillip Freeman escaped from jail and evaded a plane, drug-sniffing dogs and more than two dozen officers who hunted for him.
It’s believed that Freeman, who worked as a baker inside the jail, may have hidden on the underside of a tractor-trailer rig that delivered food supplies in order to get outside the gate. Authorities believe that he then switched over to riding train cars.
“He disappeared like Houdini,” a law enforcement officer said of the escape. He was not allowed to speak publicly about the case. “I have no doubt we’ll find him. He’ll eventually make a mistake.”
Freeman was about to be transferred to a state prison to begin serving a 10-year sentence for break-in.
“Freeman has a history in Houston, so he may have gone there, but at this point there is nothing new on him,” Capt. Ken DeFoor of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office said.
“There is a railroad track that sits about 30 feet from the back of our jail, so there is always a possibility that Freeman jumped a train and went either East towards Beaumont or West towards Houston,” DeFoor said.
Freeman has a history of arrests for burglary and once for resisting arrest, but he has no known convictions for crimes of violence.