By Staff
May 27, 2001
Woodie Moody must have been a man on a mission the other day when he scaled a security fence to escape from the Kemper-Neshoba Regional Correctional Facility. Late in the week, officials refused to confirm whether Moody was back in jail but one must believe that if he was, they would say so.
Officers suspect that somewhere in his escape experience, Moody may have stolen a horse from a residence near DeKalb in Kemper County, rode it through Union in Newton County and abandoned it near Sabastopol in the northeast corner of Scott County distance of more than 40 miles.
The interesting thing is area residents, accustomed to seeing people on horseback and totally unaware of a prison escape, thought it strange that the rider of this particular horse didn't wave to them as they sat on their porches and fanned away the early summer heat. He also tried to hide his face. In rural Mississippi neighborhoods, where everyone usually knows everyone else, this is not typical behavior.
Moody, identified from mug shots by a witness who saw him go into a store in Union, was later tracked to a swampy area, where officers found the stolen horse but lost the trail. For all of its modern devices, law enforcement sometimes encounters the more simpler aspects of a forgotten time in this case, a lone man on a horse. Most likely, Moody will eventually be recaptured. For sure, the manner of his escape will become the stuff of local legend.