By T.J. Aulds
The Daily News
Published September 23, 2009
Joshua Duane Barnes, who escaped from the state prison hospital at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston over the weekend, was captured this morning in Irving, a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman said.
Irving police took Barnes, 21, into custody after he barricaded himself in an abandoned home, state prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.
At about 9:30 a.m. today Irving police received a phone call about a suspicious person in a park. When officers approached the man he took off on foot and locked himself in a nearby house.
Police coaxed Barnes out of the house 30 minutes later and he was taken into custody. Lyons said he would be taken to a prison near Huntsville later today.
Barnes, who is serving a 35-year sentence for seven burglaries, aggravated assault and two previous escape charges, faces an additional felony escape charge.
Barnes, who has a history of escapes, kicked through the drywall of his seventh-floor cell at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice medical center at the University of Texas Medical Branch Saturday night. He then broke a window and rappelled, using bedsheets, three or four stories to a nearby roof, prison officials said.
A guard last saw Barnes at 8:15 p.m. Saturday and noticed he was gone 35 minutes later. His whereabouts after that were unknown until Monday, when he was spotted in Dallas.
Galveston police suspect that Barnes remained in Galveston for a day or more before be broke into a house and stole a car.
A resident in the 1000 block of Harborview Drive, 1.2 miles from the hospital, reported his house was burglarized between 7:30 p.m. Sunday and 7:30 a.m. Monday, Galveston police said. The homeowner wasn’t home at the time of the break-in.
Someone broke in through a window, took an extra set of keys to a 2008 Hyundai Sonata and took the car, Lt. D.J. Alvarez said.
A knife, scissors and 62 $5 gift certificates from Subway restaurants also were missing, according to the police report.
The car stolen from Galveston was found in Dallas, where police are confident it was the car Barnes used to make his getaway from the island, Dallas police spokesman Senior Cpl. Kevin Jansee said.
A man matching Barnes’ description was seen Monday afternoon in the southwest Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff, Jansee said.
The man entered a woman’s unlocked home and, after threatening to kill her, stole an undisclosed amount of cash, some clothing and her Chrysler P.T. Cruiser, Dallas police reported.
Barnes made two high-profile escape attempts in 2008.
In June of that year, he escaped from the Potter County Courthouse.
He just walked out of the courtroom, but was captured four days later in an Amarillo motel room.
Four months later, Barnes escaped from the Potter County Detention Center in Amarillo.
Again, he was missing for four days before he was found in an Amarillo motel room with his girlfriend.
He was transferred to the state prison system in January.