Police capture two escapees from OCCC
By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer
Police captured two escapees tonight, one of them an accused killed, after a prison break and an intense manhunt.
Accused killer Eric K. Vance was captured at about 11 p.m. Officers said no shots were fired.
Police had said they considered Vance to be armed and dangerous, but no weapons were found.
Vance, 31, escaped from O‘ahu Community Correctional Center in Kalihi at 7:25 p.m.
A second inmate, Kerbert Silva, who has made a name for himself as an O‘ahu prison escape artist, escaped with Vance yesterday but Silva was recaptured at 8 p.m.
Walker Arriaga, a truck driver with Y. Hata Warehouse at 285 Sand Island Access Road, said he was backing up a truck shortly after 8 p.m. when he saw a man in an orange jumpsuit run by.
Then he saw several police officers running after the man.
The warehouse is about two miles from the prison.
Sgt. Andrew Lum said Silva was captured after he was seen running toward the warehouse. Silva tried to jump a wall but officers ran him down, Lum said.
Silva was taken to a hospital to be treated for minor injuries that he may have sustained during the escape, Lum said.
After Silva’s capture, officers searched the warehouse, where they thought Vance might be hiding.
But at about 10:55 p.m., plain clothes officers in an unmarked car saw a man flagging down cars on Nimitz Highway in the east bound direction, about a mile ewa of the warehouse.
The officers recognized the man as Vance, pulled over and he gave up without a struggle.
Vance was wearing a green OCCC top and dark colored shorts.
Lum said Vance was “very passive and didn’t say anything.” Vance was also taken to a hospital for treatment of minor injuries.
Vance has been charged with second-degree murder and first-degree robbery in the death of Kane‘ohe liquor store owner Song Chol Marshall on Christmas Eve of last year.
Vance was being held at OCCC awaiting his murder trial.
Marshall was shot as he was getting into his van at Angie’s Market at about 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve, police said.
Police later found Marshall’s 2000 Chevrolet Express Van in flames in Mapunapuna and found Marshall’s body with a gunshot wound to the head in a dumpster in Waimanalo.
Silva last escaped from OCCC on Jan.17, his 37th birthday, by climbing a 16-foot fence topped with razor wire. He was recaptured Jan 25 in Makakilo.
He also escaped from prison in August 1987.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
