All 6 Prison Escapees Are Captured

All six inmates who broke out of a maximum-security prison over the weekend had been captured by Monday--the last one turned in by drinking buddies who were after reward money.

Convicted murderer Aaron Tyron James, 24, was found late Monday afternoon. He was serving a 50-year sentence for murder, kidnapping and robbery.

Police were tipped off by friends of James wanting to collect a $5,000 reward for his capture, said Capt. Michael Tyler of the state correction department.

James was pulled from a crawl space beneath a home in West Nashville, about two miles from the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution where he escaped.

“The bottom line is they snitched him out for the reward,” Tyler said. “He was out there boozing it up with some old friends.

“After they got through with the party, somebody said, ‘Hey guys, he’s worth a lot of money.’ ”

Inmates Lyle Thomas Van Ulzen, 33, and Jay Roy Denton, 32, were captured Monday morning without resistance near a lumber yard about three miles from Riverbend.

“They appeared to be all right,” said Jim Rose, assistant commissioner for operations for the state Correction Department.

“They were wet and dirty and tired.”

Two other escapees were captured late Sunday, about 18 hours after the breakout from the prison on the outskirts of Nashville.

Another was found about 2 a.m. Monday.

Authorities said there was no evidence that a prison employee had helped in the escape.

Three of the escapees were serving time for murder; a fourth was awaiting trial on murder charges.

Riverbend, which housed James Earl Ray, the convicted killer of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., until shortly before his death last spring, is home to Tennessee’s death row.

It has about 700 inmates and is in a mostly industrial, wooded area along the Cumberland River.

There have been only two escapes in its nine-year history. In 1995, four inmates escaped in a hidden compartment in a truck.

They were captured, and a prison employee was convicted of aiding the escape.

The latest escape occurred early Sunday. Billy Jackson Coffelt, 44, and Van Ulzen were let out of their cells to distribute meals to inmates marking the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast in the daytime and eat at night. Coffelt is serving a life term for being a habitual criminal.

At least one of them had a homemade knife.

They overpowered two unarmed guards and freed the other four, Correction Department spokeswoman Pam Hobbins said.

None of the guards were injured.