Cold weather helps catch escaped La. inmate

[January 29, 2009]  PLAQUEMINE, La. (AP) -- Life on the run was apparently tougher than prison for an escaped convict from Louisiana. A cold front and hunger were too much for Troy Hargrave, 32, who surrendered two days after he escaped a privately run state prison with two other men, authorities said Wednesday.

Hargrave was about 100 miles from the southwest Louisiana prison when he turned himself in to an off-duty sheriff's deputy working at a chemical plant, Iberville Parish sheriff's Maj. Johnny Blanchard said.

"The guy walks up to the deputy and says, 'You might want to get out of your car and put handcuffs on me,'" Blanchard said.

The convict had been hopping trains, Blanchard said. "He said, 'I'm cold, I'm hungry and I'm wet, and I'm willing to turn myself in,'" the officer said.

Tuesday's temperatures were in the 70s, but it was 30 degrees colder a day later.

One of the other two escaped convicts remained at large. A prison guard has been charged with helping the prisoners escape.

Authorities think the prisoners may have escaped by cutting razor wire inside a fence and climbing over.

[Associated Press]

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