An accused serial rapist who escaped prison last month was captured in Florida Tuesday night after he was recognized and reported to the cops by a heroic 7-Eleven cashier.
Sean Williams, 51, was in federal custody on three counts of production of child sexual abuse material and a count of distributing cocaine when he escaped from a prison transport van in Greenville, Tennessee on Oct. 18.
After a month on the lam, officials tracked Williams down and determined he had stolen a car in Greenville just days before his arrest — driving them to narrow their search for him in Florida.
While authorities searched, a deputy went into 7-Eleven and showed the store’s clerk, Tasha Baumgartner, a photo of Williams so she could be on the lookout.
“I saw a photo of him earlier in the day from a deputy. But it was blurry,” she told News Nations Ashley Banfield.
“So, when he walks in, I asked my coworker I was like, ‘Is that him?’ And he was like, ‘I don’t think so.’”
After the man left with a hotdog he had purchased, Baumgartner began to feel weird and looked up a photo of the wanted criminal.
“So, then I was scrolling through Facebook, and a photo of him popped up, a better one and his tattoo on his arm, and I recognized the tattoo. So that’s when I called the police and told them I was like he was in my store. I know he was because I recognized the tattoo.”
Police arrived within minutes and found Williams hiding under a tarp not far from the 7-Eleven store. Authorities took him into custody without incident.
Williams was already considered a flight risk after he allegedly made two escape attempts from prisons where he was being held over the summer.
He was indicted for the production of child pornography in September, after being arrested in April when police discovered cocaine and methamphetamine in his car during a search.
Williams is also at the center of a lawsuit brought by former US Attorney Kateri Dahl, alleging the Johnson City Police Department mishandled an investigation into multiple accusations of sexual assault against him.
In her lawsuit, Dahl claims her efforts to investigate Williams were blocked by the police department.
One of those accusations included an incident where a woman fell from his fifth-floor apartment window to the sidewalk below and somehow survived.
After hearing Williams had been captured Tuesday evening, that woman, Mikayla Evans, told Banfield Williams being back behind bars was “the best news ever.”
During the manhunt, David Jolley, a US Marshal for the Eastern District of Tennessee, described Williams as being dangerous.
There had been a combined reward of up to $7,500 from the U.S. Marshals Service and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation for information that led to his arrest.