UPDATE: Members of a prison emergency response team captured Stephon J. Easterling at around 6:30 p.m., roughly eight hours after he walked off an off-prison job. He was picked up on Leak Street in Rockingham, N.C. He will be transferred to a higher-custody prison and will face escape charges.
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RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCT) — Officials are searching for a prisoner from the Anson Correctional Institution who they said left a work release job on Wednesday in Wadesboro.
Anson Correctional Offender Stephon J. Easterling, 28, was a minimum custody offender serving a four-year sentence as a habitual felon, drug possession and fleeing police after his conviction in Richmond County in 2022. His projected release date was Feb. 1, 2024.
Officials said he was working at an off-prison job assignment around 10:20 a.m. Wednesday when he did not return from a job break. Witnesses reported he got into a white Nissan Rogue and drove off.
Easterling is 6-foot-0 and 200 pounds with black hair and hazel eyes. He has tattoos under both eyes, one of a teardrop and one of a cross, as well as on both arms, both hands, both shoulders and his chest.
If anyone has any information on Easterling’s whereabouts, please call 911 or call Anson Correctional Institution at (704) 695-1013.
