Inmate flees North Carolina prison camp as coronavirus spreads at Butner complex
As a coronavirus outbreak began to swell at the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner last week, a minimum-security inmate escaped and has not been found.
Prison officials notified local police on April 2, that Richard R. Cephas, 54, was missing at 12:45 a.m. He was an inmate in the complex’s prison camp, which is not fenced in, said Butner’s town police chief, James Champion.
The prison said Cephas is a “non-dangerous offender” serving a sentence for drug offenses, according to a news release from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
As of Thursday, Butner has 76 cases between staff and inmates — the largest outbreak among the federal prisons. No deaths have been reported at Butner.
Sue Allison, a Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman in Washington, could not say whether Cephas had been tested for the virus. She said no inmates at the Satellite Prison Camp, adjacent to the Butner prison, have tested positive for COVID-19.
At the time Cephas fled, Butner officials had reported that nine inmates in the complex’s medical center had tested positive as well as one employee.
Since then, the numbers have grown dramatically, with a surge of positive test reports over the weekend. On Wednesday, the bureau reported 58 positive tests, with all but one of them inmates.
By Thursday afternoon, the number of staff who tested positive jumped to 17, with all but one working in the medium-security facility that also has the biggest number of inmate cases, which climbed to 44.
The additional staff and inmates reported brings the total to 76 cases, the largest outbreak among the federal prisons. No deaths have been reported at Butner.
That medium-security facility can hold 641 inmates, and is adjacent to the minimum-security Satellite Prison Camp that has space for 273 inmates.
The Granville Vance Public Health Department had reported 63 cases at Butner on Wednesday, which accounted for all but 20 of Granville County’s total.
Butner prison officials did not provide additional comment about Cephas beyond the April 2 news release. Prison officials have declined to comment about the outbreak since it first surfaced late last month.
Coronavirus outbreak at Butner
The camp has been in turmoil in recent days, according to inmates’ family members, who have told The News & Observer that beds have been shifted to create space for inmates who need to be isolated. Some inmates have speculated that Cephas fled to avoid catching the disease, those family members said.
Champion said Cephas is the first inmate to escape the prison that he can recall in the past year. He did not expect it to be a problem for the community.
“Typically, they don’t stay around the area when they escape from the camp,” Champion said.
Creedmoor police posted a notice on its Nextdoor page that said: “The police department has not received any specific information indicating Cephas is in our immediate area.”
Court records show Cephas was sentenced on June 22, 2017, in U.S. District Court in Delaware to five-and-a half years. Court records also indicate he had a knee replacement before he reported to prison four months later.
He is African-American, 5-feet, 9-inches, weighs 155 pounds and has brown eyes and black hair, the release said.
Some inmates at the camp work at the nearby UNICOR Federal Prison Industries factory, which produces clothing and textiles. Family members of inmates at the camp say the factory has been producing masks for staff and inmates to wear at the federal prisons for protection from the virus.
Allison said she could not discuss Cephas’ “conditions of confinement.”
Allison said if Cephas had tested positive for the virus, the health department for Vance and Granville counties would have been notified. Lisa Macon Harrison, the public health director for the counties, said she was unaware of a contact.
The complex, which includes another medium-security facility and a low-security facility, houses 4,700 inmates; many of them are elderly and infirm.
On Tuesday, bureau officials said they were stepping up early release of inmates at Butner because of the coronavirus outbreak.
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 1:35 PM with the headline "Inmate flees North Carolina prison camp as coronavirus spreads at Butner complex."