A man who escaped and fled from a Jasper County Sheriff’s Department patrol car mid-day Monday remains at-large, although there have been sightings of him in Newton County where he lives, including a manhunt that took place there on Tuesday evening.
Marcell Thomas is a 51-year-old resident of Bon Wier and also a prison parolee. Jasper County Sheriff Mitchel Newman says Thomas is the suspect in a recent burglary of the Jasper County Precinct 4 Road & Bridge Maintenance Barn in Buna, which is a location that Thomas worked at as a trustee while he was recently incarcerated in the Jasper County Jail.
Deputies had a warrant when they went to arrest him at a location just west of Kirbyville late Monday morning and had to fight him to get him into custody. On the way to jail, deputies said Thomas managed to open the door of a patrol car, jumped out, and fled on foot at the intersection of Highway 190 at East Houston Street in Jasper.
Law enforcement officers searched the area for hours, but were unable to locate Thomas.
Newton County Sheriff Robert Burby says that his department has been receiving reports of sightings of Thomas riding a bicycle, and a deputy actually saw him on a bicycle shortly before 8:00 Tuesday evening on Highway 87 at County Road 4102 south of Newton. Burby said the deputy immediately turned his patrol car around, but Thomas had vanished. Other deputies searched the area, but were unable to locate him.
Burby said of Thomas, “He needs to just turn himself in; It’ll make it easier for himself, and everyone else.”