Escaped California Prisoner Caught at Coyote Valley Casino

Inmate Donovan Bacon thought he had made it. The prisoner, who is serving a six-year sentence for second-degree robbery, managed to escape from the Parlin Fork Conservation Camp #6 in Jackson State Demonstration Forest on Sunday.

Prisoner Escapes, Travels to Casino, Gets Caught

However, his taste for freedom was short-lived, and his chances of an early release have now been diminished. Bacon was caught by police officers at the Coyote Valley Casino in Mendocino County only four hours after he had made good on his escape.

What’s impressive, however, is that in the four hours he was gone, he had managed to travel the 38-mile distance to the Coyote Valley Casino – he most likely hitch-hiked.

Bacon’s prison escape was not too difficult to pull off, as it is generally agreed that prisoners have limited opportunities for escaping, and the ones who are allowed a slightly more relaxed regime are those who are non-violent offenders.

Bacon saw this as a chance, not leniency on the part of the correctional institutions, and took it only to find himself caught at the Coyote Valley Casino mere hours later. Authorities were puzzled as to why Bacon would choose to go inside a casino, as they have strict security protocols that make patron identification a priority.

Attracted Like Months to (Casino) Light

Bacon must have thought that hiding in a large crowd would give him a better chance of success, but advanced facial recognition technology and fleets of security officers usually make such a daring escape much harder.

With Bacon now apprehended, he will most likely be denied his right to early parole and may face additional charges or even extended prison terms.

Convicts who manage to escape have been known to be caught at casinos. In 2012, a pair of inmates, James Misleveck and James Newman, escaped from the Black River Correctional Center in Jackson County, Wisconsin, only to be caught at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood in Florida, once again gravitating to the casino,o which proved their ultimate undoing.