LIBERTY, Mo. (WDAF) — After a week on the run, Ray County, Missouri, fugitive Justin Robinson is back from Oklahoma, where he was captured. He’s now at the Clay County Jail.
The Ray County Sheriff says the escape proves the jail just isn’t secure enough to hold some inmates.
Video shows Justin Robinson and Liam Olinger escaping from the Ray County Jail last week, stabbing a guard with metal pulled from the jail walls. He survived.
“If you see the video, just the heinous nature of the attack, we can’t let an individual like that out. We have to do everything we can. It’s all hands on deck to insure people like that are behind bars so that the community feels safe,” Acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations Taekuk Cho said.
After the first inmate was quickly captured, Homeland Security joined in the week-long search for Robinson before he was ultimately captured through tips at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, bus station headed for Texas.
Friday, he returned to the metro where the Ray County Sheriff and our cameras were waiting.
“Anything to say to the officer that you stabbed?” FOX4 asked Robinson, but he had no response to any of our questions.
“Our job was to hold him and keep him safe, and the fact he got out that weighed heavy on my mind. The what ifs. So to see him show up inside of a secure facility again with handcuffs on was the best feeling I could ask for at this time,” Sheriff Scott Childers said.
“I think it sends a message to everyone else out there who may be considering absconding from justice that you will ultimately get caught, you will pay the price,” Cho said.
Robinson and Olinger will almost certainly face new charges for the escape and attack on the corrections officer. Robinson was awaiting trial, accused of stabbing his pregnant girlfriend, while Olinger was charged with identity theft. He’s been moved to Platte County. Several other inmates considered high-risk have also been transported to other facilities.
The sheriff admits the jail in Ray County has problems and isn’t as secure as Clay, Platte, or most surrounding jails. But he assures residents steps have been taken to make sure inmates can’t escape exactly the same way those two men did.
