Manhunt for Dangerous Fugitive Alberto Morales Continues

Alberto Morales

Authorities are still searching for Florida inmate Alberto Morales, 42, who escaped on February 11, 2013, while being transferred to prison in Nevada. Morales, who was being transported from Florida to serve out a 30-year to life sentence for sexual assault with a weapon, had vowed to fellow inmates that he would not be going back to prison. So far he’s been as good as his word.

Morales had reportedly become disruptive on the flight from Miami, “bumping his head against a passenger’s seat,” … and doing “crazy, unusual things that disrupted a lot of the flight,” according to Miami-Dade Police Director J.D. Patterson. Police were forced to complete the prisoner’s transport by car. The two Miami-Dade police detectives escorting Morales, Jaime Pardinas and David Carrero, were stopped at a Walmart parking lot in Grapevine, Texas, near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, awaiting the arrival of a third officer, whose assistance was required by procedure for a ground transfer.

It was around 11 p.m. that Morales struck, stabbing Pardinas, 54, deeply in the back and the neck with a piece of his own eyeglasses and making his getaway. Pardinas suffered a collapsed lung in the attack, was hospitalized and had to undergo emergency surgery for the wound. He is expected to recover, but is still considered in serious condition.

Grapevine police are still combing the area surrounding the airport until there is reason to believe that Morales is elsewhere. According to Grapevine Police Spokesman Robert Eberling, Morales was “appropriately,” shackled and cuffed at the time of his escape.

Eberling described Morales saying, “This is an extremely dangerous individual, and he’s capable of anything.” It also seems that he suffers from mental illness.

Morales is described as 5-foot-7, weighs 175 pounds, has brown eyes, brown hair and is of Cuban descent. According to the Department of Public Safety Morales has “a tattoo of a Native American on a horse on left shoulder and upper left arm,” as well as scars on his left hand, left arm and nose.

He was last seen fleeing on foot in gray shorts and an all-white hoodie wearing one shoe. He is believed to be shackled and still on foot.

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