New Orleans prison escapee agrees to return to Louisiana after being recaptured in Georgia

NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans prison escapee Derrick Groves, who spent nearly five months on the run before being recaptured in Georgia, agreed to be returned to Louisiana during a court appearance Thursday.

“I want to go back to where I came from,” Groves, a New Orleans native, told a Fulton County judge during the televised hearing.

Groves, who was recaptured Wednesday under a crawl space in the basement of an Atlanta home, waived his right to an extradition hearing.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said there are “ongoing discussions about next steps” to bring Groves back to the state.

The timeline for bringing the 28-year-old to the state has not yet been determined, said Sgt. Kate Stegall, spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Groves was previously charged with one count of simple escape in June and will be arraigned on those charges once he returns to Louisiana where he will be placed in the state’s maximum security facility in Angola, Murrill said. The charges carry a sentence of two to five years.

Murrill said Wednesday she was considering upgrading the charge to aggravated escape — punishable by five to 10 years — given that authorities found a handgun, a shotgun and 20 pounds of marijuana inside the Atlanta home where Groves was hiding.

In May, Groves and nine other New Orleans inmates removed a toilet and crawled through a hole, writing “To Easy LoL” on the wall above to commemorate their brazen escape. The other escapees, all of whom were recaptured within six weeks, were also charged with simple escape.

Groves already faces life in prison after being convicted of murder last year for fatally shooting two people at a family block party on Mardi Gras Day in 2018.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-reported issues.

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