A man who vanished from a federal prison camp in South Carolina was found hiding at a hotel off Tunnel Road in Asheville early Tuesday morning, two days after his escape triggered a multi-agency manhunt. Travis Shaqwann Fair, 36, was taken into custody without incident, bringing a brief but tense search to a close.
Fair escaped from the Federal Correctional Institution Edgefield in South Carolina on Nov. 8, according to cbs12.com. With help from law enforcement in Asheville and North Carolina, U.S. marshals determined that Fair was hiding in a hotel off Tunnel Road, and he was taken into custody at the hotel on Nov. 10 without incident, the outlet reported. The original report from KOKH noted the U.S. Marshals Service confirmed Fair's capture.
Fair had been missing from the satellite camp adjacent to FCI Edgefield, which authorities describe as a minimum-security facility, according to a report from WRDW. Once his absence was discovered, the U.S. Marshals Service, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies were notified, and an internal investigation was launched, the station reported.
An 80-Month Sentence for a Straw-Purchase Gun Case
At the time of his escape, Fair was serving an 80-month prison term for possession of a firearm by a felon, per the same cbs12.com account. The U.S. Department of Justice's office for the Western District of North Carolina has said Fair pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a firearm and was later sentenced to 80 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release, according to a DOJ press release.
A separate DOJ announcement on his sentencing details the same 80-month term and supervised release period for the firearm offense.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission maintains a research report on federal escape offenses, noting that the publication combines regularly collected data with a special coding project meant to provide deeper understanding of escape crimes and the people who commit them, according to the Commission's website. The report's specific findings were not part of the material reviewed for this story.
