Four inmates escaped the Perry County Correctional PREP Center in Uniontown early Saturday, the Perry County Sheriff’s Office confirmed. Three of the four are not participants in the facility’s reentry program. They are Dallas County inmates being housed at the state facility under a separate arrangement because the Dallas County Jail has been closed since an EF-2 tornado struck Selma in January 2023.
The escape occurred at approximately 1 a.m. Saturday. But for hours, no official information was released to the public. Independent journalist Robert Shepherd first reported via social media Saturday afternoon that four inmates had escaped the facility. It was still several hours before official confirmation of the escape came.
The delay has raised pointed questions in Perry and Dallas Counties about why residents were not notified sooner that four inmates, including individuals facing murder and attempted murder charges, were unaccounted for.
Perry County Sheriff Roy Fikes said deputies and state authorities, along with other responding agencies, are actively searching for the men, and an investigation into the circumstances of the escape is underway.
The escapees are Marquavious Billingsley, 24, of Selma; Jaden Christopher Maxwell, 21, of Dallas County; Kevin Gunn, 19, of Dallas County; and Johnny Dave Harris Bush Jr., 29, of Etowah County.
Court records reviewed by the Times-Standard-Herald show the men were facing charges ranging from property crimes to murder.
Billingsley pleaded guilty to felony murder in Dallas County Circuit Court on Aug. 21, 2025, in connection with the May 30, 2018 shooting death of Kenbranesha Rayford on Marie Foster Street in Selma. He was 16 at the time of the offense. Under a plea agreement, he was sentenced to 240 months split 60 months in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections, with 60 months of state supervised probation upon release. Because he had accumulated more than 79 months of jail credit by the time of sentencing, he was released directly onto probation.
Less than four months later, on Dec. 3, 2025, Billingsley was charged with first-degree assault after Selma police say he and several others beat a man with a gun at a Selma housing complex. The victim was transported to Baptist South with severe facial bruising. On Feb. 26, 2026, the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles issued an order authorizing Billingsley’s arrest for violating the conditions of his probation. He was held without bond.
Court records show the district attorney’s office filed a motion to revoke Billingsley’s probation on the murder case, with a hearing set for May 28, two days before the escape. If revoked, Billingsley faced up to 15 years of suspended prison time on the murder sentence alone.
His Dallas County case history also includes five separate charges of promoting prison contraband across multiple years.
Maxwell was awaiting trial on two separate attempted murder cases. A Dallas County grand jury indicted him in July 2024 on two counts of attempted murder and two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle in connection with a March 21, 2024 shooting. Bail was set at $500,000. A second grand jury indicted him in March 2025 on one count of attempted murder in connection with a separate shooting on Dec. 19, 2024. He also faces a felony theft of property charge.
Both attempted murder cases were set for jury trial on Aug. 3, 2026.
Maxwell was 18 at the time of the first shooting and 19 at the time of the second.
Gunn, the youngest of the four at 19, was indicted in October 2025 on three felony charges stemming from separate incidents: first-degree robbery for allegedly robbing a woman at gunpoint; trafficking in stolen identities for possessing stolen Social Security cards and identification belonging to the robbery victim and three other individuals; and converting a pistol to a machine gun for possessing a firearm equipped with an auto-sear switch. The robbery case was set for trial on Oct. 5, 2026. Gunn turned 19 on May 11, less than three weeks before the escape.
Bush is the only escapee whose profile appears consistent with the PREP Center’s stated mission. Alabama Department of Corrections records show he was convicted in Etowah County on charges including unlawful breaking and entering a vehicle and theft of property. He was classified MIN-OUT, the lowest custody level, and had been on work release as early as 2023. His minimum release date was March 18, 2025.
The PREP Center (Parole and Probation Reentry Education and Employment Program) opened in April 2022 after Gov. Kay Ivey cut the ribbon on the converted facility. The state Legislature had appropriated $19 million in 2021 to purchase and renovate the former Perry County Correctional Facility, a privately operated 738-bed prison that had been largely vacant for years.
The program is operated by the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles under Director Cam Ward and serves probationers and parolees in 90-day cohorts of approximately 80 men. GEO Reentry provides substance abuse and mental health counseling. J.F. Ingram State Technical College provides workforce training, including heavy equipment and forklift certification, and was planning a new 20,000-square-foot training building at the site.
As of late 2024, the program had graduated 232 men, all with employment and housing plans. According to the bureau’s data, none had returned to prison. The program has been cited as a national model for reentry and was set to be featured in a book commemorating the 20th anniversary of the federal Second Chance Act.
But the facility has also been housing Dallas County jail inmates since the January 2023 tornado. Ward told Alabama Daily News in December 2024 that Dallas County rents space at the facility, pays for food and utilities, and provides its own staffing. Ward described the Dallas County inmates as separate from the PREP enrollees.
“We’re cooperating with (Dallas County) until they get a new jail built,” Ward said at the time.
More than three years later, the Dallas County Jail remains closed. As of January 2026, the facility still had no electricity. On May 29, the day before the escape, the Dallas County Commission held a special meeting and approved a bid for the final phase of jail construction. The lone bid came in at approximately $21 million from a Selma-based contractor. Dallas County Sheriff Mike Granthum estimated the jail would take 14 to 18 months to complete.
Saturday’s escape is not the first security incident involving the facility’s Dallas County population. In December 2025, the Times-Standard-Herald reported on an inmate at the Uniontown facility, also from Dallas County, who attempted arrange his own release by placing phone calls from inside the facility while impersonating a staff member.
The facility itself has a longer history of escape. When it operated as a private prison under contractor LCS Corrections Services, two inmates escaped in May 2009 and were recaptured after a 14-hour armed standoff in North Dakota. Alabama subsequently pulled its 250 prisoners from the facility, with state officials noting the contractor had taken eleven and a half hours to notify them of the escape.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the four escapees is urged to call 911. Authorities caution the public not to approach or attempt to apprehend them.
