NewsWest 9
ECTOR COUNTY - Two inmates who escaped from the Ector County Detention Center on Saturday morning are back where they belong. They were captured around 6 p.m. Saturday night.
These are same two inmates who escaped back in January and wait until you hear where they were found this time.
They were on the run for more than 12 hours but 38-year-old Robert Steven Dudley and 32-year-old Rickey Lavell Taylor didn't decide to run very far.
They were found just across the street at the Motel 6 off of Interstate 20 in Odessa.
Around 4:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon, Ector County Sheriff Mark Donaldson got the call he'd been waiting for.
They got a tip that two inmates who escaped the Ector County Detention Center had been spotted at a Motel 6 just down the road from the jail.
"We did go to that area and found out which room it was and recovered them in the room with no incident," Sheriff Donaldson said.
Early Saturday morning, Dudley, convicted of aggravated assault, and Taylor, charged with murder, cut holes through the shower panels in their cells, climbed through pipe chase in the walls, made their way to the roof and fled to the nearby motel.
"They knew that they were going to that room, to that motel, so they had a room ready for them," Sheriff Donaldson said.
Deputies are still investigating who booked the room for them.
"We don't believe they were totally complacent," Sheriff Donaldson said. "They just rented the room for somebody else, not knowing who was actually going to be there."
Now, both men are back behind bars.
"At least one of them is probably going to go to another jail and we do have another area that we're going to set up for the other one," he said.
Taylor will most likely be the one transferred and Dudley will be under a 24-hour-watch.
Sheriff Donaldson is glad to have them back in custody but he says it's obvious changes need to be made.
"If it's that easy to get something broken through, well then we need to fix that," he said. "We just need to do a better job inside and do what we're supposed to do so this won't happen."
Sheriff Donaldson said this was a completely different shift of officers on duty than the last time the men escaped but they're still not done talking with them.
