FORKS —
State officials continue to investigate how an inmate escaped from a minimum-security prison south of Forks.
Aaron Richard Brown III, 37, was taken into custody at 9 a.m. Friday, less than a day after he slipped away.
A team of corrections officers tracked him down in the woods about 10 miles north of the Olympic Corrections Center.
Brown, of Snohomish County, was last seen at the corrections center’s dining hall at about 4:35 p.m. Thursday, Department of Corrections spokeswoman Norah West said.
Brown had arrived at the center on Wednesday from the state prison in Shelton.
He had been incarcerated at Shelton since June 27, when he began a 27-month sentence for drug possession.
Brown had been placed in segregation Friday at the corrections center and was set to be interviewed by
corrections staff, West said.
He had served a prison sentence in 2010 for robbery, the state said.
The state Department of Corrections was the lead agency on the search, with assistance from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Washington State Patrol and Hoh tribal police.
West said the last inmate to escape the Olympic Corrections Center, Darby R. Maguire, did so Aug. 6, 2011.
Corrections officers recaptured Maguire on Aug. 9, West said, 25 miles away from the prison.
The Olympic Corrections Center is located about 27 miles from Forks.
It opened in 1968 and can house up to 381 prisoners.
