3 Georgia county jail escapees captured in Florida after multistate search

Three inmates who escaped from the DeKalb County Jail were captured in Florida following a multiday search involving local, state, and federal law enforcement, according to officials.

The escape occurred Sunday night from the DeKalb County Jail, and the inmates were later arrested in the metropolitan Miami area, according to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Chief Deputy Temetris Atkins of the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office identified the escapees as 24-year-old Stevenson Charles, who was charged with murder and armed robbery in DeKalb County and was being held under a federal life sentence for murder; 31-year-old Yusuf Minor, charged with two counts of armed robbery and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony; and 25-year-old Naod Yohannes, charged with simple assault, arson, and unlawful acts of violence in a penal institution.

Atkins said the jail is more than 30 years old and that inmates exploited compromised infrastructure to escape. He said officials are making adjustments to both infrastructure and policies but declined to provide specific details.

U.S. Marshals Service official Marshall Thomas Brown said two task forces were activated because Stevenson was a federal inmate. He said recorded jail phone calls helped investigators determine that the inmates arranged transportation outside the jail and were driven to Minor’s girlfriend’s residence before being transported by a Lyft vehicle to Florida.

Brown said federal authorities tracked the group’s movement into Florida and arrested all three inmates without incident in the Miami metropolitan area. Brown said the Lyft driver is “very traumatized” and is being interviewed by the FBI “for additional kidnap charges, as well as other things of that nature.”

The inmates will be returned to Georgia to face federal and state charges, according to Brown.