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John Modie: Escaped Murderer Caught After Escaping From Prison In Nelsonville, Ohio

By Tara Dodrill
Published on: 01:25 PST, Mar 29, 2016

Escaped murderer John Modie has been captured. The 58-year-old man escaped from the minimum to medium security prison in Nelsonville, Ohio, at an unknown time on Sunday.

John Modie was being housed at the Hocking Unit of the Southeastern Correctional Complex in the rural small town in the southeastern region of the state in Athens County. Modie had previously escaped from the Cuyahoga County Jail in northern Ohio, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

Modie escaped from the Nelsonville prison on at some point on Sunday, but was not missed until evening headcount at 11 p.m. A massive manhunt was launched, with helicopters and K9 units being dispatched in both the small town where the prison is located and the adjacent village of Buchtel.

Residents were on edge throughout Monday as officers walked in their backyards and choppers circled above their fields. During the morning to early afternoon hours, the search appeared to be centered upon the Happy Hollow area just outside of Buchtel, and the old Wayside Inn bar at the edge of the village. The woods behind the bar lead into Happy Hollow and were once part of the Underground Railroad route to freedom for escaped slaves.

Hocking College, which is located just a few miles from the prison, was closed for a portion of the day and enacted enhanced security protocol for the remainder of the day and evening. Nelsonville-York Local School District is on spring break this week, leaving no students and only a few staffers in the building. The elementary, middle, and high school complex is also located less than five miles from the prison.

As the day wore on, reported possible sightings of Modie were announced in New Lexington, about 35 miles away from the Nelsonville prison. Athens County Sheriff’s Office public releases also stated that John Modie may have been riding in either a gold Jeep or a gold paneled truck with two women. All of the possible ultimately proved to be false.

Modie was serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for the murder of a woman, robbery, and on charges stemming from his escape from the Cuyahoga County Jail. He was just a few years into his sentence when he broke out of the Hocking United of the Southern Correctional Center.

The Hocking Unit at the Southeastern Correctional Complex houses about 450 older inmates, NBC 4 News reports. The Hocking Unit is an annex of the main Southeastern Correctional Complex located about 30 miles north in Lancaster, the Ohio Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation website notes. Brian Cook is the prison warden.

Nelsonville area residents began voicing concerns about housing inmates in the area when the prison complex was being built, and are uttering even stronger concerns now after the escape of the convicted murderer. Many local leaders and residents in the northern end of Athens County are infuriated that a murderer of a relatively young age was being houses in the Hocking Unit and not at the maximum security prison, RCI, in Chillicothe.

The Nelsonville prison was billed as a housing unit for “older” or senior citizens non-violent offenders. Details about John Modie’s escape have still not been shared with the general public. A mounting demand for answers and a thorough investigation into not only security protocols at the prison, but also about the type of inmates being held there, has been called for by residents.

Few details have been revealed about the capture of John Modie at the abandoned Shell gas station on the main drag in Nelsonville. Whether or not the escaped murderer knew the business was sitting empty, also remain unknown at this time.

Author’s Note – the writer is from the Nelsonville area and used both personal knowledge about the community, law enforcement alerts/scanner traffic, and personal interviews with residents to compile details for this this report.

[Image via Shutterstock]

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