New Orleans — As the search continues for the last two New Orleans jail escapees who are still at large, several agencies have pitched in to increase the cash reward for information leading to their arrests.
The reward has been hiked to $50,000 per escapee, authorities announced Thursday, a hefty increase from the $20,000 amount that had been in place for more than a week following the brazen May 16 escape of 10 inmates from the Orleans Justice Center. Eight of the 10 have been captured.
One of the men still at large — Derrick Groves — was convicted of murder for the shooting deaths of Jamar Robinson and Byron Jackson in 2024. The other escapee — Antoine Massey — was being held on charges of domestic abuse involving strangulation prior to the jailbreak.
Remaining 2 fugitives may have escaped Louisiana, official says
Louisiana State Police Col. Robert Hodges said in a news conference Thursday that while he does not believe Groves or Massey have the resources to flee the U.S., they may have escaped Louisiana thanks to the help from other potential accomplices, and given the amount of time that has passed.
Hodges also said Massey and Groves may have also had time to change their appearance, but that time has likely taken a toll on them, adding, “they are tired, they are running out of resources.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill had told CBS News in an interview Wednesday that the two may be in other cities.
“They can keep running, but they can’t hide forever,” Murrill said.
Authorities said even some family members of the 10 escapees have called in with tips to help track down the escapees.
“Some of you might be reporting a friend, a loved one, a relative,” said Jonathan Tapp, special agent in charge of the FBI New Orleans Field Office, during the news conference. “It might not be easy.”
Hodges dismissed concerns flagged by some members of the public that family members of the escapees could try and take advantage of the reward system to split the money with the inmates themselves.
He commended those family members who he said have called in helpful tips.
Authorities have received more than 700 tips
According to Darlene Cusanza, head of the nonprofit Crimestoppers Greater New Orleans office, three tipsters so far are set to receive awards for their help in arresting three of the fugitives and some alleged accomplices.
One person has already been paid at least $10,000, and two more people are set to be paid soon, Cusanza said at the news conference.
More than 700 tips from the public have poured in since the May 16 escape, Cusanza said, and the Crimestoppers office has had to open up four more phone lines to accommodate all of the calls they are receiving.
So far, at least 14 people have been arrested on allegations they helped the inmates either before or after the escape, including one employee of the jail.
Investigation ongoing into how escape was carried out
Authorities said that in the early morning hours of May 16, the 10 inmates broke out of the New Orleans jail by ripping a toilet from the wall of a jail cell to which they were not assigned, cutting steel bars, and digging out a hole in the wall behind the toilet.
The men allegedly crawled out of the hole to a loading dock, scaled an exterior concrete wall of the jail complex and darted across a freeway to freedom.
The men even took the time to write taunting messages on the wall of the cell before they made a run for it, including, “we innocent,” and another misspelled, “to easy LOL.”
Jail staff didn’t notice the inmates were gone for more than seven hours, and it took a few more hours after that for the public to be notified.
Even New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said that, on the morning of the escape, Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson didn’t notify her about what had occurred until after she saw media reports online during a meeting with other managers in her department.
“We’re all sitting here, and (a staff member) said, ‘Have you heard anything about an escape?’,” Kirkpatrick recalled in an interview with CBS News. “We were like, ‘No we don’t know anything about escape.’ And then one of the other chiefs picked up his phone and said, ‘It’s already in the media.'”
The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has faced sharp criticism for its handling of the investigation into how the escape occurred.
Hutson has alleged that for years she had been asking the city for funding to make critical upgrades to the correctional facility, but that she had been turned down repeatedly.
A 33-year-old maintenance worker at the jail has been arrested and charged with helping the inmates escape, and Murrill has said more employee arrests could be coming.
Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams says his office is combing through jail call logs and cross-referencing fingerprints and DNA samples to ascertain who else working at the jail may have been involved.
The Louisiana Attorney General’s Office is now leading the investigation into failures at the facility that allowed the escape to happen in the first place. The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office has also been a part of that investigation.
“There’s so much that’s been troubling,” Williams said in an interview with CBS News Monday. “Everything’s on the table. I think an unprecedented crisis like this, has unprecedented results.”
Meanwhile, officials with the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Louisiana State Police and the New Orleans Police Department said Thursday they remain laser-focused on getting Massey and Groves back in cuffs.
As Kirkpatrick put it in her interview with CBS News, “I’m not out to finger point. I’m out with a mission.”
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