Captured escapees back in same unit they escaped from

James Robert Thomas, 25, and Willie Lee Hoffman, 21, escaped Monday and were captured Wednesday afternoon in a rural Coal County house about 40 miles southwest of the prison.

They were returned to the prison less than two hours later and placed in the same unit from which they escaped.

"Today their day will be spent pretty much the way it is for everyone else in that unit right now, on lockdown," prison spokeswoman Lee Mann said Thursday.

She said officials planned to interview the pair about the escape and their time outside the prison walls.

The two will likely face criminal charges and disciplinary measures.

Hoffman and Thomas managed to escape the prison's H-unit early Monday by pulling toilets from their cell walls, going through a hidden maintenance area, through an air vent and onto the prison roof.

They escaped prison grounds by clearing two high fences and a razor wire barrier. A third inmate attempted escape with them, but became tangled in the razor wire and was captured.

Thomas and Hoffman fled McAlester in a car they stole from a woman at a gymnastics center, authorities said.

Mann said Thomas and Hoffman would likely be monitored more closely than usual.

"Otherwise they will follow the same schedule they have for the past several years," Mann said.

Thomas was serving a life-without-parole sentence for murdering 81-year-old Jessie Roberts in 1993, as well as a 400 years for raping her. Hoffman was serving 20 years for kidnapping and other crimes in Oklahoma and Payne counties.

Three men and a woman were in jail for allegedly harboring the suspects during their escape, but they weren't expected to be charged until Friday, according to the Coal County district attorney's office.

Officials identified the suspects, all from Coalgate, as Robert McDonald, 29; Carl Lewis, 23; Darrell Sanders, 30; and Francine Edgar, 30.