Staff Writer

An inmate who escaped Monday from the Union County Detention Center likely would have been released in July if his good behavior had continued.

Lee Anthony Evans, 48, of 106 Pinedale Ave., Union, walked away from his job in the detention center kitchen sometime around 5:15 a.m. Detention Center Director Niel McKeown said Evans slipped away during a food delivery, exited a gate and climbed a fence.

Evans began serving a six-month sentence at the detention center on March 24 on a charge of failure to pay child support.

"He was all right Friday, in good spirits and wanted to know when he would get out," McKeown said. "Probably with his kitchen work credits he would have gotten out by the first of July."

Escape carries a mandatory six-month sentence. An inmate who escaped in 2006 in a county-owned vehicle pleaded guilty in 2007 and received a seven-year sentence.

Evans is considered armed and dangerous. He might have taken a kitchen knife with him when he escaped.

"Anybody who breaks out of a prison facility - you don't know what frame of mind they are in," McKeown said.

Evans might have received some news in a letter or a phone call that upset him, McKeown said.

Evans is a black man, 5 feet, 9 inches tall who weighs around 160 pounds. When he left the detention center, he was wearing a white T-shirt with the detention center's name on the back, orange pants and he may have had a denim coat with the center's name on the back.

Meanwhile, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is conducting an investigation at the facility on an unrelated matter.

On April 7, a guard was found unconscious and was taken to Wallace Thomson Hospital by Union County EMS.

"Apparently we have a case of misconduct by an officer on duty," McKeown said.

The officer, who was treated in the intensive care unit at the hospital, has been fired, McKeown said. He declined to release any other information, citing the ongoing investigation.