A man who was convicted of murdering four people in 1993 is on the loose after escaping a Michigan prison. He had reportedly abducted a woman who fled when they reached a gas station in Indiana.
Michael David Elliot, 40, was serving a life sentence at the Ionia Correctional Facility in Michigan when it was discovered that he was missing around 9:40 p.m. Sunday night, reports The Associated Press. “It appears that he created a hole at the bottom of the two perimeter fences of the correctional facility and then crawled through those holes,” Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russ Marlan told the AP in an email.
Marlan wrote that Elliot abducted a woman, using her jeep to drive to Elkhart, Indiana, which is 100 miles south of Ionia and on the state line. He stopped to get gas and the woman apparently tried to flee and did call police. However, Marlan didn’t provide any further information on the woman’s current condition.
According to WSBT, Elliot was convicted of killing four people in August 1993. He and three others tried to steal drug money from Vickie Currie, Michael Tufnell, Bruce Tufnell and Kathy Lane. Court documents said that when they didn’t find the money, Elliot and another man killed the four at the home, before setting it on fire.
The LaGrange County Sheriff's Department said that the woman told police that Elliot’s goal was to get as far away from Michigan as possible. Officials aren’t sure where he is headed, but he does have family in Tennessee.
The woman’s jeep is a 2004 red Jeep Liberty with a Michigan license plate that reads 5FTG55.