Tag Archives: Peoria County Jail

Prison escapee still at large CAUGHT! (Updated)

UPDATE: James Fuller, has been captured. He was found about 1:35 p.m. at 2114 N. North Street. See full report here.

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An e-mail from Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard to the City Council this morning says:

All, just wanted to let you know that as of 530 this morning, escapee Fuller has not been located. Our officers in conjunction with the county and others have continued our efforts through the night and have followed up all leads with negative results. We will continue our efforts today and I will advise If and when there is any significant news.

Yesterday, Aaron M. Cook (28) and James E. Fuller (44) escaped from the Peoria County Jail. Cook has since been recaptured. Fuller is still at large. More details on the breakout and recapture of Cook are available in this Journal Star article. Their escape was ingenious:

To make their initial escape, the inmates somehow cut a hole in the ceiling of a jail cell and carved another hole in the concrete-block roof of the facility, using a stack of books to boost themselves out. From there, they used a rope fashioned from bedsheets to rappel from the two-story-high roof to the ground.

Unlike the movie “Shawshank Redemption,” in which posters were used to hide progress in digging through a prison wall, Fuller and Cook apparently had placed the cut-away section of ceiling back in its place when they weren’t creating the hole in the concrete blocks….

[Sheriff Mike] McCoy said the men were discovered missing during breakfast. They had disguised they were gone by piling up clothing under their bed covers.

The oldest trick in the book. Here’s hoping that, unlike Shawshank Redemption, Fuller is recaptured quickly and put back in jail because, unlike Shawshank Redemption, Fuller isn’t an innocent victim kept in prison by a conniving warden. Fuller is a dangerous criminal, convicted of armed robbery and rape.