LEOINARD GRAY

PHOTO: Michael Fasola recently managed to escape from the St. Charles Parish jail by scaling the exercise yard’s wall, slipping onto the roof, sliding down a cable and climbing down the tower, above, for two hours of freedom. (Staff Photo by Leonard Gray) HAHNVILLE – A Kenner man awaiting trial for murder escaped Saturday for at least two hours from the third-floor exercise yard of the St. Charles Parish Correctional Center in Hahnville. According to Capt. Patrick Yoes of the St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office, Michael A. Fasola, 19, was making use of exercise equipment in the jail’s yard for inmates between 9-11 a.m. when he apparently and casually stacked equipment high enough for him to clamber up to the razor wire and over to the courthouse roof. From that point, he apparently shimmied down a cable to the communications tower behind the courthouse and scrambled 100 feet to the ground. Fasola was discovered to be missing when lunch was served at 11 a.m., and a search was launched. He was found at 1 p.m. behind the Mississippi River batture near Roland Court. According to the arrest report, along the way, Fasola had changed from the inmate jump suit and obtained a lockblade buck knife, which was discovered beneath his shirt. He was booked with simple escape and illegal possession of a weapon and he was captured without incident. Fasola pleaded innocent to charges of shooting and killing 16-year-old Jon Springman of Metairie in the Bonnet Carre Spillway in September 1999. Springman, Fasola and another teen-ager were firing guns in the Spillway when Fasola allegedly shot Springman in the head with a .38-caliber handgun. Springman’s remains were discovered by a hunter in March in a concrete pit. Yoes said at least two other escapes were attempted in recent years. One involved an inmate who leapt for the exercise wall’s roof, pulled himself up and lowered himself to the ground with bed sheets he had earlier tied together and concealed. However, he was a few sheets short and dropped to the ground from the end, breaking his ankles. That attempt prompted the sheriff’s office to add a raised roof to the exercise yard. Another try was made by an inmate who likewise gained access to the roof and leaped nearly a dozen feet for the communications tower. However, he was unable to grab hold of the tower and dropped to the ground, breaking a hip.