Florida Prisoner Escapes From Jail After Posing as Cellmate

A prisoner sparked a police hunt after escaping from jail by posing as her cellmate.

Jessica Hanson walked out of the Duval County Jail in Jacksonville on Sunday after pretending to be the other woman so she would be released, reported News4Jax.

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO) tweeted about the escape and alongside a picture of Hanson, was a message urging anyone who saw the 36-year-old to contact them. The JSO said Hanson had been located and taken back into custody 30 minutes after fleeing.

Three days later, officials tweeted an update stating that she had been recaptured.

News4Jax said Hanson had been arrested on September 15 as part of a motor theft case.

The media outlet said Hanson has now been charged with escape but further details are unavailable at this time.

Hanson's escape comes just a month after almost 200 convicted felons on parole had warrants out for their arrests after running away from a halfway house in Texas.

Many of those who skipped parole while staying at the taxpayer-funded Southeast Texas Transitional Center had committed violent crimes, including rape and murder, CrimeStoppers' Andy Kahan told Fox 26 Houston.

"A lot of the offenders who are convicted of sexually related offenses that have to be released or are released on parole end up at this facility," said Kahan.

This particular halfway house, on Beaumont Highway, in Houston, is not a lockdown facility and is one of five transitional centers in the state that houses sex offenders when they are released from jail.

The men living at the facility do not wear uniforms, but some wear ankle monitors. Under the terms of their release they are allowed to come and go from the facility, as long as they meet their parole meetings every night.

The ex-prisoners can enroll in "evidence-based rehabilitation programs," according to the website of the GEO Group, which operates the facility. The offenders are allowed to carry cellphones and have jobs. If they violate the conditions of their parole, a warrant is issued for their arrest.

In the first half of 2020, around 90 offenders failed to meet parole and fled the facility, making them fugitives. These men included three ex-prisoners on lifetime parole, five convicted of killing and 23 men registered for sexual offenses.

And in August, Newsweek reported how Kentucky child sex offender James William Meece was found in Los Angeles after skipping parole 20 years ago.

Meece evaded capture by using an alias and conning those around him while pretending to be a Vietnam veteran.

He was convicted of rape in Ohio in 1980, and moved to Escanaba, Michigan, in the the late 1980s, later being convicted of second-degree criminal sexual conduct towards minors. In 1991 he was sentenced to between three and 15 years for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl and her 12 year-old sister.

Meece, 71, was paroled in May 1999, and was required to register as a sex offender.

However, he absconded in November the same year and was at the top of U.S. Marshals and Michigan State Police's Most Wanted list until police captured and arrested Meece on July 29, at a woman's home in El Monte, California.