By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
While authorities continued this week their search for an inmate who escaped Sunday, June 12, from Fountain Correctional Facility, they announced that another inmate, who escaped from the same facility on Monday (June 20), was back in custody.
Edward Cortez Williams, 41, who was serving a life sentence (999 years, 99 months, 99 days) after his conviction on a series of 2004 first-degree robberies in Jefferson County, has yet to be captured. No details of his escape have been released.
Williams was found guilty of robbing six people at gunpoint and sentenced to life under the Habitual Felony Offender Act.
According to Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) officials, Williams escaped from Fountain Correctional around 9:20 Sunday morning.
The convict is described as a black male, 6-feet-1 and weighing 143 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a tan state inmate uniform.
ADOC has neither confirmed nor denied reports that Williams was part of a work-release program when he escaped.
He was also convicted in 2002 of seven counts of first-degree robbery and four counts of first-degree receiving stolen property.
According to published reports, Williams requested by letter in 2021 that he be granted parole so he could carry out a personal religious mission of “reaching the nations of Antarctica” before Earth is destroyed.
Anyone with information on the escape or the escapee’s whereabouts is urged to call ADOC at 800-831-8825 or to notify his or her local law enforcement agency.
Meanwhile, 59-year-old Bobby W. White, who was reported missing from FCF around 11:40 a.m. Monday, was recaptured by a team of ADOC K9 officers.
White is serving an 80-year sentence for property theft in Talladega County He surrendered quietly after the tracking dogs cornered him in a wooded area near the prison.