Escapee captured in Dallas faces capital murder charge
Posted on 02/12/2003 8:38:14 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
Escapee captured in Dallas faces capital murder charge
02/12/2003
A prison escapee was back behind bars Tuesday and is expected to face a capital murder charge in the slaying of a Madison County man whose pickup truck was used in a getaway to Dallas, authorities said.
Demitrius Tyrone Holloway, 22, a convicted burglar and robber from Dallas County, escaped Monday from the Ferguson Unit in Madison County. He was a prison trusty and had stuffed his bed bunk to make it appear that he was asleep.
Farmer Edward Pearson, 57, of rural Madison County in east-central Texas was killed Monday afternoon.
His wife, Brenda, found his body about 5 p.m. Monday.
"We had already been out searching for him," Madison County Chief Deputy Paul Cannon said about the escapee.
"Then we were dispatched to this call, and we didn't know what we had until we got there."
Mr. Holloway was arrested at Audelia Road and Forest Lane in northeast Dallas on Monday evening after parking a white 1999 Dodge pickup outside a grocery store.
Dallas police had the area under surveillance after they suspected Mr. Holloway would turn up at the home of a friend or relative in Dallas.
Mr. Holloway was taken to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center and transferred to the Madison County Jail, Deputy Cannon said. Guns taken from the Pearson home were found in the pickup truck, authorities said.
Authorities said Mr. Holloway is expected to face several charges, including escape and capital murder, but an arraignment had not been set as of Tuesday.
Larry Fitzgerald, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman, said Mr. Holloway would be transferred to the Coffield Unit, a maximum-security facility in Tennessee Colony, to await trial on the new charges.
"When someone escapes from the penitentiary, we take him immediately to another unit," Mr. Fitzgerald said.
The Pearsons' home is about nine miles from the Ferguson Unit. Mr. Pearson was waiting for his wife at home when he was killed.
"She had just gotten off of work and had stopped at the store before she came home," Chief Cannon said.
Mrs. Pearson found her husband's body, which had been bound with tape, authorities said. The back door appeared to have been forced open, they said.
A person who answered the phone at the Pearsons' home Tuesday said the family was distraught and declined to comment.
Mr. Holloway had been serving a five-year sentence since December on the robbery and burglary convictions out of Dallas County.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
E-mail dsedeno@dallasnews.com
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