Two of the four teenagers who escaped from a Nashville juvenile detention center over the weekend have been apprehended, police said Tuesday night.
Decorrius Wright, 16, who is accused of murder, and Calvin Howse, 15, were taken into custody by the Juvenile Crime Task Force in Madison, Tennessee, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department announced in a tweet shortly after 8 p.m.
The two teens, along with Morris Marsh, 17, who is also accused of murder, and Brandon Caruthers, 17, escaped from the Juvenile Detention Center in downtown Nashville on Saturday night, police have said.
Wright is accused in a Feb. 7 murder of a 24-year-old man, and Howse was in custody after being arrested on Nov. 21 on auto theft and gun possession charges, Nashville police have said.
Police said that the teens were apprehended about 8 p.m. outside a condominium complex in Madison, which is northeast of downtown Nashville. The teens were not armed, police said.
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“Work is continuing to locate Morris Marsh & Brandon Caruthers,” police said in a statement.
Marsh is accused in an April 8 killing of a 19-year-old man, and Caruthers was being held in an August 2018 armed robbery case, police have said.
“While we are happy to have these two youth off the streets tonight, we know that we still have a lot of work to be done” to find and apprehend Caruthers and Marsh, Juvenile Crime Task Force supervisor Lt. Blaine Whited said.
Nashville police said in a statement this week that police were told the four were on a work detail when their supervisor left to handle a fight that broke out in a different part of the facility.
The teens “managed to get onto an elevator and used staff protocols to ride to the ground floor where they went through a series of doors and exited to the outside.”
About 35 minutes passed before police were notified of the escape, the police department has said.
Nashville police said this week that the department’s major case task force would lead an investigation into the circumstances of the escape.
Nashville police Chief Steve Anderson said in a statement Monday that he “has become increasingly concerned about the contract employees’ operation of the detention center since first being briefed on the initial details of the escape,” and he noted the 35-minute delay before 911 was called as among his concerns.
Whited pleaded with the public or anyone who knows the two outstanding suspects, including family, friends or neighbors, to contact police. He said both outstanding escapees are still thought to be in the Nashville area.
