WARREN, Pa. (WBEN/AP) — Authorities continued searching Saturday for an inmate described by police as “very dangerous" who escaped from a jail in northwestern Pennsylvania using bed sheets, officials said.
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Michael Burham, 34, escaped from a jail in Warren by climbing on exercise equipment and using bed sheets to escape through a window, authorities said. Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police said Burham was being held in lieu of $1 million bail on kidnapping, burglary and other charges, and Warren police said he was a suspect in a homicide investigation.
While the immediate search area concentrated on the immediate Warren area, Pennsylvania State Police Saturday acknowledged the search area has been widened and at least a dozen law enforcement agencies are involved.
Aviation assets are being used in the search, but Bivens say due to the rugged and remote terrain involved, foot searches are most effective in many cases.
"We have no reason to believe he has left the general Warren area," said Bivens during a Saturday update. Bivens emphasized Michael Burham is still considered to be dangerous and residents in the area are urged to remain vigilant. "Lock your doors. Make sure your car is locked."
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Burham was last seen wearing a blue denim coat from the jail, white and orange pants, and orange shoes, Warren police said Friday. Bivens said Saturday that it's likely Burham has changed his clothing.
Burham was being held on arson and burglary charges and was a suspect in a homicide investigation, police said. He was also associated with a prior carjacking and kidnapping of a local couple, police said.
Burham is “a self-taught survivalist with military experience and could be potentially holed up in a wooded area,” Bivens said.
“He is considered very dangerous, and the public is asked to be vigilant and report anything out of the ordinary,” police said in a Facebook post.
Officials say he escaped by climbing on exercise equipment and using bed sheets tied together.
There are two rewards totaling $9500 posted for information leading to Burham's capture and anyone with information is asked to call 814 728 3600.
Two decades ago on the opposite side of the commonwealth, an inmate being held on murder charges after bodies were unearthed on his Wilkes-Barre property took advantage of a botched repair job and used a rope fashioned from bed sheets to shimmy down from a seventh-floor cell in the Luzerne County prison. Officials said a window repaired after a 1989 escape attempt had two panes that were too small and secured only with caulking, so they were easily broken out.
Hugo Selenski spent three days on the lam after the October 2003 escape before turning himself in. Another inmate was injured in a fall during the escape attempt and was recaptured. Selenski beat two murder charges in a 2006 trial but was convicted of two murders in 2015 and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.