A woman who was abducted by a prison escapee who was later captured said the 26-year-old told her he needed her car to see his terminally ill mother in Georgia.
Tennessee Correction Department spokeswoman Dorinda Carter said Stephen Allen Hester was captured around 8 p.m. Sunday in Franklin County, Ga.
Kristin Helm, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, said law enforcement officers used spike strips to stop the car Hester was driving after chasing him from Stephen County, Ga., into Franklin County in northeastern Georgia.
Hester was discovered missing from the South Central Correctional Center Annex in Clifton during a head count Saturday night.
Authorities said Hester, who was serving an eight-year sentence for a robbery in Memphis earlier this year, went to a market near the prison, abducted a woman and stole her car.
The woman, Holly Martin, a cashier at the market, told WSMV-TV in Nashville she didn't resist Hester because he had a pen pointed at her and she was afraid he'd use it to stab her.
"He just told me that he wanted to go see his mom, (because) she had brain cancer and she lived in Georgia," Martin said. "That's all he told me."
Authorities said Hester let the woman go at a Walmart in Savannah, Tenn.
Helm said Hester was booked into the Franklin County Jail and additional charges against him were pending. There was no immediate indication when he would be sent back to Tennessee.
The TBI had added Hester to its Top Ten Most Wanted list.
