
The great Texas escape saga added a fresh chapter as two inmates who had busted out of North Texas' Fannin County Jail are back in the slammer after a full-throttle manhunt had the Lone Star State on high alert. According to officials, fugitives Raymond Ross and Ramon Perez made a movie-style jailbird flight into freedom, slipping into the shrouding darkness of the nearby woods on Saturday, as per Hoodline.
Each con had a rap sheet as long as a Texas highway, and the desperate duo donned nothing but casual grey sweats as they took their unauthorized leave. Ross, a seasoned convict with priors for evasion, drug possession, and gunplay—Perez, his fellow escape artist. The community held its breath, cautioned by the Fannin County Office of Emergency Management's Facebook page, stating, "As with all felons do not approach. We do not believe that they are armed at this time," per Hoodline.
Authorities played a game of cat and mouse until the search zeroed in on Bonham after reports of Ross attempting to hail a ride, an action that promptly saw the caller hit 911. Meanwhile, Perez chose a less dramatic route, turning himself in at the Bryan County Sheriff’s Office in Oklahoma, ready for a Texas-sized extradition back to Fannin County, as stated by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Bonham Police Chief Andrew Hawkes spun the narrative into a community cohesion moment. "After several possible sightings of one of the escapees from last weekend have been reported, we are asking people to stay out of the area... and asking anybody that sees anybody suspicious to call 911," Hawkes proclaimed in a Facebook dispatch. Schools across Bonham shuttered their doors, opting for lockout measures as local law enforcement surged in a display of power and control in partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety, as reported by Fort Worth Star-Telegram.