A murder convict is at large after escaping from a Michigan jail and abducting a woman who then fled from his custody, officials said Monday.
The officials at Michigan Department of Corrections said jail authorities noticed that 40-year-old Michael David Elliot was missing, Sunday, around 9:30 pm from the Ionia Correctional Facility, Michigan.
Convicted for four murders in 1993 at Gladwin County, Elliot was serving a life sentence at the facility. While escaping he abducted a woman from Ionia threatening her with a sharp object and then headed to Elkhart, Indiana. However, at a stop at a gas station, she escaped and alerted the police, Russ Marlan, spokesman for Michigan Department of Corrections, told the Associated Press.
The gas station employee told CBS Kalamazoo affiliate WWMT that he did not smell anything fishy when the two came. According to him, the woman asked about the address of the station and Elliot pumped gas. She then locked herself in till the police arrived. Elliot had fled the scene by then.
Marlan said the police had a conversation with the woman around 11:50 p.m. Sunday. "Citizens should immediately call 911 if they observe anything suspicious or possibly become aware of the whereabouts of ... Elliot," Marlan told CBS News.
It was unclear how Elliot escaped, but sources told WXMI-TV that prison staffs think he might have slipped through a hole in a fence.
The corrections department said Elliot was charged and convicted for first-degree murder and was also accused of arson and armed robbery. The law enforcement agencies have begun a manhunt and consider Elliot to be armed and dangerous.
An emergency count was conducted at the Ionia Correctional Facility and all other prisoners have been accounted for, Marlan said.
