By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
A Fountain Correctional Facility inmate who escaped from the facility June 12 is back behind bars.
Alabama Department of Corrections officials announced that Edward Cortez Williams, 41, was recaptured early last Friday, July 8, in the same county as he was convicted in 2004. He was serving a life sentence (999 years, 99 months, 99 days) that was imposed after he was convicted of six first-degree robberies that were committed in Jefferson County.
His status as a habitual offender justified the life sentence.
Williams was also convicted in 2002 on seven counts of first-degree robbery and four counts of first-degree receiving stolen property.
The inmate 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.”
He was taken back into custody without incident by Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office deputies.