Alert Woman Leads Police To Two Escapees

An alert bank employee is credited with helping police on Wednesday capture two inmates who walked away from an Idaho prison.

The employee heard broadcast descriptions of the two North Idaho Correctional Institution escapees and called police when she saw two men standing on a downtown Pullman sidewalk about 8:45 a.m., Pullman Police Sgt. Chris Tennant said.

Officers contacted the two men and determined they were Henry G. Andruss Jr., 22, and James H. Moore, 20. They were arrested without incident, Tennant said.

Pullman is about 50 miles northwest of the Cottonwood prison’s dormitory, where the men were last seen Tuesday evening. It was not immediately known how they made their way to Pullman.

The two were considered minimum security risks, Warden Jim Rehder said. Both were enrolled in school and were scheduled to go before a review board in parole hearings within a month.

Neither had ever been a discipline problem, Rehder said.

Andruss was serving a two- to seven-year sentence for a burglary conviction in Kootenai County. Moore had been sentenced to one to five years for intimidating a witness in Canyon County.

The pair was being sought by Idaho Department of Corrections trackers, the Idaho State Police and Idaho County Sheriff’s Department after footprints were found early Wednesday near the prison. Authorities speculated the pair was headed toward the nearby Cottonwood Butte Ski Area.

There have been 56 escapes in the institution’s history, Rehder said, but all the escapees have been caught.