Richard R. Cephas, an escaped North Carolina inmate, said he fled a Butner prison camp to avoid dying from the coronavirus, according to The News & Observer (N&O). Serving time for a drug offense, Cephas said he wants to turn himself in, but felt the public needed to know about the conditions at the prison.
“I take ownership of having to serve my time,” said Cephas, 54. “I signed up for a jail sentence, not a death sentence. “I want to turn myself in; that was my intent from day one, to make public awareness of what’s going on on the inside and so some of these guys can get out of there and not die in there,” he said. “So that’s my goal, for (criminal justice advocates) to reach back and contact me and tell me what is necessary to do moving forward.”
Cephas escaped the minimum-security institution April 2 after nine inmates tested positive and one staff member tested positive for COVID-19. Thursday, Butner reported 66 inmates and 25 staff tested positive for COVID-19. By Sunday, four inmates had died of the virus, The N&O said.
With neutropenia, which causes people to have na abnormally low white blood cell count, Cephas said he is at high risk of contracting the virus. The spread of COVID-19 in prisons has been a concern from criminal justice advocates.
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He said he and other inmates spoke to a unit manager in attempt to find out how the prison planned to handle the coronavirus outbreak, but they didn’t get any good answers.
“There was just a little apprehension from her and the inmates, on some of the information that she was giving, and … we believed that she was being a little bit disingenuous,” Cephas said during a FaceTime interview with The N&O while in hiding.
“I don’t think she liked the inmates asking her questions, but we wanted to know how could we be safe because we didn’t have enough soap … we had no control over social distancing … so that became a problem for all of us,” Cephas added.
He said he doesn’t think he should be punished for escaping because he’d been a model inmate up until that point. He also hopes he will be able to serve out the rest of his time at home once he turns himself in.
“I have to be honest, I don’t feel that I should get time for escaping from prison,” he said. “If it wasn’t for COVID I never would have left.”
