Lompoc Escapee Seized After Eluding Officers for 31 Hours

A convicted kidnaper who has broken out of prisons and jails nine times was caught Sunday after he escaped from the federal penitentiary in Lompoc and led more than 400 officers on a 31-hour chase through thick fog and dense woods.

Russell Hamilton was tracked through 15 miles of mountains and underbrush and found about 10 a.m. Sunday in an empty farmhouse northeast of the prison.

“He has a doctor’s degree on escapes,” said prison warden Richard Rison. “When he was caught “he had a big grin and he said to me, ‘I gave your (officers) one hell of a chase.’ ”

Hamilton, 34, cut through the steel bars on his prison cell with a saw blade about 3:40 a.m. Saturday. His cellmate, Harmut Graewe, 46, was captured as the pair crossed a 10-yard patch of razor wire, Rison said. Hamilton was able to scale the 12-foot outer chain-link fence.

Hamilton was housed with the prison’s general population rather than in one of two security units. Rison said Hamilton probably will be moved to the nation’s highest-security federal prison in Marion, Ill.

Hamilton’s last escape was from Chester, Ga., in 1985. He and a partner kidnaped a woman, raped her and abandoned her in Tennessee. He was sentenced to life in prison in April, 1989.