DATE: Saturday, August 30, 1997             TAG: 9708300417

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   50 lines

POLICE SEARCH FOR PRISON ESCAPEES FROM MISSISSIPPI ONE MAN CAUGHT IN NORFOLK AS OFFICIALS USE DOGS, HELICOPTERS.

At least one of four escapees from a Mississippi prison was in custody late Friday and hopes were that a police dragnet spread along the Virginia Beach and Norfolk border might nab the other three.

Details of the manhunt were still sketchy late Friday, but police using helicopters and K-9 dogs located one suspect in a drainage ditch just after 11 p.m. near the Wayside Motor Inn in the 400 block of South Military Highway in Norfolk.

The four men escaped from a Harrison County, Miss., prison Aug. 6 and went on a multi-state crime spree, breaking into homes in Florida and North Carolina and stealing cars in both states.

A car stolen in Dublin, N.C., on Aug. 10 was found in the parking lot of the Janaf Shopping Center on Sunday, indicating the men were in the Hampton Roads area.

Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake police were cooperating to locate the men, who were described as armed and dangerous.

There was a report Friday that one of the men was at a home in the 1500 block of Lilac Ave. in Chesapeake, but he fled before police could arrest him. Then word came that three of the men might be at the Wayside Motor Inn in Norfolk.

Larry Hill, a Norfolk police spokesman, said three men fled the motel area as police arrived, running into a swampy area nearby.

Police launched an extensive search with officers patrolling along roadways and searching in the brush and woods and along riverbanks near the Motor Inn as a police helicopter spotlight shone down from above.

The man, who was arrested by Virginia Beach officers about 11:15 p.m., was not immediately identified.

The four inmates walked away from a state Corrections Department satellite facility in Gulfport, Miss., where they were serving time for property crimes. None were considered dangerous at the time, said Ken Jones, a department spokesman.

Jones identified the four as Brian Roberts, 25, serving five years for grand larceny from Lauderdale County; Dusty Turner, 19, serving five years for burglary from Marion County; Wayne Thomas, 21, serving five years for residential burglary and general burglary from Newton and Neshoba counties; and Scotty Martin, 24, serving 10 years for charges that include grand larceny, from George and Jackson counties.

The men were discovered missing at a 1 a.m. bed check at the Harrison County Satellite Facility located at the Air National Guard training base in Gulfport, Jones said. ``According to security officials, they were in the unit when a midnight bed check was conducted, he said.

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