Howard County Police Capture Escaped Prisoner

Howard County police have captured escaped prisoner David Watson.

Police received a 911 call Wednesday morning reporting a sighting of a suspicious man in the woods in the area of Clifton T. Perkins Hospital, where Watson first escaped.

Late Wednesday evening, Howard County police announced the capture of Watson. On Thursday, he had a bail hearing in Howard County, where he faces a charge of first-degree escape. Watson declined representation, and District Judge Mary Reese ordered him to undergo a competency evaluation at the same hospital he was taken to last week. The bail hearing will continue on May 12.

Captured David Watson reacting to news during a bail review he's returning to Perkins "they tried to cut my head off when I go to Perkins" pic.twitter.com/NmBdwqeB0L — David Collins (@dcollinsWBAL) May 4, 2017

Watson, 28, was being taken to Jessup by two guards from the Wicomico County Detention Center when he escaped custody and fled into a wooded area. When the transport van parked at the facility, Watson pushed a guard and ran into the woods.

Police said a local employee called 911 around 9:30 a.m. after spotting a man near railroad tracks behind a building in the 8200 block of Dorsey Run Road. The 911 caller said the man was wearing a white hard hat and a safety vest. The man ran when he was spotted.

Police said officers learned that a hard hat and safety vest had been stolen from a storage building about a mile away.

While searching the area, police said officers found packing materials inside a concrete drainage tunnel. Police said investigators suspect Watson may have recently been in the tunnel. Search teams also found shoe prints in the area.

"We don't know how long he may have been in the tunnel. What we do know is that our bloodhound trail took us a few hundred yards beyond the location of that tunnel. So at some point, he went a good distance beyond that location. So we don't know when he doubled back around and came back to the area," Howard County police spokeswoman Sherry Llewellyn said.

Listen to Howard County Police Chief Gary Gardner talk about Watson's capture at a morning news conference:

A full ground search resumed in Howard County. The U.S. Marshals Service had taken over the lead of the investigation earlier in the week.

Police said CSX trains traveling through the area were moving too fast for someone to be able to board.

Watson is serving a sentence of more than 100 years in Delaware for attempted murder, and he has been charged in Wicomico County for attempted murder of law-enforcement officers. He was taken to Jessup for a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation in that case.