Prison says 2 Arkansas murders who escaped captured after traffic stop in New York

Prison: 2 Ark. escapees captured in New York state

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A pair of convicted murderers who escaped from an Arkansas prison wearing guard uniforms were captured in New York state Tuesday after police chased their speeding car, authorities said.

Arkansas Correction Department spokeswoman Dina Tyler said the chase began when a New York trooper tried to stop the men’s car for speeding. Both were caught after the car crashed and they tried to run away, she said. No one was hurt and neither man was armed.

Calvin Adams and Jeffrey Grinder were captured near Hornell, N.Y., about 90 miles southeast of Buffalo, Tyler said. They were in the same car that had been left for them at the Cummins Unit prison about 90 miles southeast of Little Rock last Friday night.

The Evening Tribune in Hornell reported that the chase reached high speeds and stretched over at least 20 miles in Allegany County in rural western New York, just north of the Pennsylvania state line.

The car bearing Missouri tags coasted a short distance and hit a street sign, the newspaper said.

State and local police declined immediate comment.

Earlier Tuesday, authorities in Arkansas said they had arrested three people suspected of providing the car to the inmates.

Arkansas State Police spokesman Bill Sadler said police arrested Deana Davison and Ryan McKinney, both of Little Rock, and Michael Stephenson of Jacksonville. The three were arrested and charged Saturday with furnishing an implement for escape, a felony, Sadler said.

Grinder, 32, and Adams, 39, were each convicted of capital murder and were serving life sentences without parole when video surveillance showed them putting on the uniforms in the prison library after a 6 p.m. headcount.

They walked out of the prison unchallenged during a shift change soon afterward and drove away in the car left for them, Tyler said.

Five Correction Department officers whose job it was to guard the entry and exit points of the prison have been put on unpaid leave while the department investigates.

The state planned to begin proceedings to bring them back to Arkansas, and Tyler said it could be within days if the pair doesn’t fight extradition.

Associated Press writers Ben Dobbin in Rochester, N.Y., and Jill Zeman Bleed in Little Rock contributed to this report.