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Missing inmate found hiding in ceiling at Westville Correctional Facility

Missing inmate found hiding in ceiling at Westville Correctional Facility
Posted at 12:47 PM, May 06, 2017
and last updated 2017-05-07 14:20:40-04

WESTVILLE, Ind. -- A Westville Correctional Facility inmate who was reported missing was found hiding in a ceiling on Sunday. 

Orville Morris, 35, was unaccounted for on Friday when correctional facility employees did their afternoon count. 

The prison said Morris never made it off of the grounds. He was found hiding in the ceiling of the pallet shop where he worked after crawling up into the mechanical systems. 

When staff returned to that building on Sunday to check for him they heard a noise and were able to isolate it to the area Morris was hiding. When they located him hiding on a ledge along the building's industrial HVAC ductwork, Morris yelled "I give up. I give up."

"We never give up. Our teams went through the entire facility three times searching for him," said Westville Correctional Facility Superintendent Mark Sevier. "We would keep on searching until he was found."

Morris is now being questioned by the facility's Correctional Police Officers. The prison will place him in an extremely high-security restrictive housing unit. 

He was originally scheduled to be released in 2019 but he will now be charged internally for attempted escape. The La Porte County Prosecutor's office will decide if further charges will be added. 

Nearly 3,400 inmates are housed at the Westville Correctional Facility. The prison is about 130 miles northwest of Indianapolis.