4th St. Tammany escapee caught; massive manhunt ends-NEW ORLEANS – A massive, two-day manhunt is over after deputies find a man who escaped from the St. Tammany Parish jail.
Early Sunday morning law enforcement officers found 30-year-old Timothy Murray in a rural area three miles west of Highway 25 in Folsom.
Murray eluded law enforcement officers for more than 48 hours. But the hunt for him ended around 1 a.m. with his capture.
Officers discovered Murray in a wooded area off of Bennett Bridge Road near Folsom, no more than five miles from the St. Tammany Parish jail.
Murray was one of three men who broke out of the jail Thursday night. All of them were in jail on charges of murder or attempted murder. Murray himself faced a murder charge for the death of a Slidell man back in 2006.
Deputies caught three of the escapees Friday morning, but Murray eluded them until now.
People who live near where Murray was caught say there were several dozen law enforcement vehicles and a helicopter hovering in that vicinity over night. They say deputies shut down Highway 1078, not letting anyone in or out of the area in their final push to find Murray.
'It's upsetting that they wouldn't let us back in. So, as time went on, we sat on the side of the road. It was hot, we didn't want to leave the car on and we stayed there for about an hour, and hour and 10, 15 minutes,” said resident Wayne Charrier. “They had like a family out there, they had like four or five people coming home and of course they wouldn't let none of them-- one group, one couple was so close, they could almost see their house, but they still would not let them through.
“But they got a job to do," Charrier said.
St. Tammany Sheriff Jack Strain has scheduled a news conference for Monday afternoon, where he is expected to discuss what led deputies to Murray's location. Strain said hundreds of law enforcement officers helped in the search.
He said he would not comment further on the situation so that those officers could celebrate Father's Day.
"You do kind of get in the habit of thinking like the Northshore is kind of its own little island, and separate from everything-- but every so often something happens that rocks the whole area,” said resident Amanda Ladreyt. “It's just one of those things, I guess. I think it does remind you that you're not on your little island and no place is Pleasantville.”
