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Inmate Almost Escapes Walton County Jail Using String And Toothpaste

By Anne Sewell
Published on: 08:37 PST, Sep 16, 2015

An inmate at Walton County Jail in Florida almost managed to make a second jailbreak in just a few days, using just some string and a little toothpaste.

Chase Courville, 26, made his daring escape attempt just two days after he was arrested for escaping imprisonment at Tensas Parish Detention Center in northern Louisiana.

According to My Panhandle, the only reason Courville failed in his escape was by chance. On Sunday morning at around 5:10, Officer Curtis Knapp was doing his rounds at the Walton County Jail, checking the cells, when one of the inmates handed him a note.

The note outlined the fact that the prisoner in cell 102 had been making an escape attempt by cutting the bars on the window and according to the writer, he was unable to sleep due to the noise the inmate had been making all night.

Deputies then entered cell 102, where they found Courville standing and looking out of the window. They cuffed the inmate and sent him to the visitation area at Walton County Jail while the deputies searched his cell.

It was during this search that the deputies found a large crack running down the left side of the cell’s window. A small piece of sleeping mat had been used to cover a welded area at the bottom of the middle vertical bar on the window. Deputies also found a piece of string, hidden inside the bar.

NWF Daily News reports Courville had used a piece of string from a blanket, coated in toothpaste, in an attempt to cut through the bar on the window. The inmate had so far cut almost completely through the bottom of one bar, leaving only a small piece of metal still holding the bar to the window frame, as can be seen in the image above.

According to WCSO Chief AJ Smith, after his attempt to escape Walton County Jail, Courville was moved to a cell near booking where he could be constantly supervised.

Courville had been arrested Friday in a traffic stop along with two other escaped prisoners, Christopher Newcomb and Christopher Stringer, driving a stolen vehicle with Louisiana plates.

He had originally been arrested in Louisiana for a non-violent crime and now has a further charge to his name for an attempted escape from the secure detention facility.

According to Smith, Courville will have many more years in prison, saying he guessed that because it worked the first time, Courville thought it might work again. He said he had never heard of an attempted escape from Walton County Jail, and that with only a day and very limited resources, Courville had broken that record.

Smith said, “You never know what someone who feels like is in a desperate circumstance will do and that’s why we take all the precautions we can,” adding, “That’s hopefully going to be his last attempt.”

[Image: CC BY 2.0 Victor]

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