http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9922969/HOUSTON - A Death Row inmate escaped from a county jail after he obtained civilian clothing and a fake ID badge, authorities said.
Charles Victor Thompson got into civilian clothing and "apparently he fooled somebody into thinking he had some reason for being there, and they let him out," Harris County sheriff's Lt. John Martin was quoted as saying in the Friday editions of the Houston Chronicle.
Thompson, 35, of Tomball was being held Thursday in the Harris County Jail after he was resentenced last week in the 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend.
"He had changed out of the orange jumpsuit that inmates ordinarily wear," Martin said. "He may have been taken out of the cell block and put in the attorney booth in the guise of having an attorney visit."
Thompson had an ID card suggesting he worked for the Texas Attorney General's office.
?It was convincing enough?
"It was convincing enough that the deputy let him out of the facility," Martin said.
Authorities and witnesses characterized Thompson as a narcissistic sociopath who turns violent under stress, according to the Chronicle. He was also linked with the white supremacist group Aryan Brotherhood while in prison, the newspaper said.
Thompson remained at large Friday and investigators were questioning jail employees. Martin said Thompson, who is white, 6 feet tall, and weighs about 230 pounds, is considered extremely dangerous and should not be approached if spotted.
Thompson was to be returned to the state prison system within 45 days, according to Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons.
Martin said Thompson was convicted of capital murder in the April 1998 shooting deaths of Dennise Hayslip and Darren Cain, and had been sentenced to death. He was being held in the Harris County Jail after a jury last week resentenced him to death.
"This is something that's just unfathomable to me," Hayslip's brother, Mike Donaghy, 45, of Tomball told the Chronicle. "How can a convicted murderer get away like that?"
?My heart died?
Hayslip's mother, Wynona Donaghy, 62, said she thought people were joking when they called her Tomball antique shop to tell her the news after seeing it on television.
"I said, 'That's the sickest joke you've ever played on me,'" she said. "They said, 'Charles Victor Thompson ? he's loose.' My heart died."
The Houston Chronicle reported that Thompson was sentenced Oct. 28 in the killings of his ex-girlfriend, Hayslip, 39, of Tomball, and her new love interest, Cain, 30, of Spring, after a jury concluded his troubled background did not warrant a life sentence.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had ordered the new sentencing hearing. A new jury sentenced Thompson Oct. 28 to death.
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