Weeks after the escape of two men from separate Mississippi prisons, the search continues for a 71-year-old man convicted of capital murder who escaped the Mississippi State Penitentiary earlier in the week. 

Nevin Whetstone, who is serving life for the 1983 murder of Loretta Darlene Steele in Lee County, was last seen Tuesday, prison officials said. 

This is not the first time he has escaped incarceration. Whetstone received a one-year sentence for escaping from the Sunflower County Jail. He also tried to escape Parchman in 1988 with another man by climbing a fence behind a reception unit, according to the Associated Press. 

A spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Corrections declined to comment Wednesday about details of how Whetstone escaped, how prison staff discovered his absence and whether a lack of staffing was a contributing factor. 

Staffing has been a problem at Parchman and across the state’s prisons for years. The agency’s 2023 annual report, the most recent published online, lists 275 filled security positions at Parchman, but 430 positions are authorized. That resulted in an inmate to staff ratio of 8.6. 

Whetstone has been in prison since 1984 after pleading guilty. Because he was sentenced before July 1994, his life sentence is parole eligible. 

In 2023, he was denied parole and given five years before he can be considered again, in 2028, according to an advocate who has worked with him. To date, Whetstone has been denied parole at least eight times. An MDOC spokesperson did not confirm whether Whetstone is parole eligible. 

Whetstone has been housed in Unit 31, Parchman’s medical unit, according to prison records. The advocate added that he has used a walker, which an MDOC spokesperson declined to comment about. 

Whetstone’s escape comes months after at least two prison escapes in December.  

On Christmas Eve, Drew Johnson escaped the South Mississippi Correctional Facility and was found a day later in Greene County. The 33-year-old is serving a life sentence for murder, and after the escape he was moved to Walnut Grove Correctional Facility. 

Gregory Trigg, sentenced to 61 years on nine counts including armed robbery, kidnapping and burglary committed in the Jackson metro area, escaped Parchman Dec. 9 and was found days later in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The 46-year-old was returned to prison and moved to Walnut Grove. 

This year, a bill has been proposed to require local law enforcement and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation to be immediately notified about any prison or jail escape and once the person is apprehended. The legislation awaits a vote by the Senate. 

In the past decade, there have been at least 50 people in MDOC prisons and assigned to community work and restitution centers who have escaped, with a majority returned to custody afterward. About half of those escapes have been since 2020. 

Whetstone is among those who have escaped Mississippi prisons more than once. 

Trigg, who escaped last year, previously escaped from the Scott County Jail in 2017 while he was being held there on a court order, according to a MDOC news release from the time. 

Former Parchman inmate Ryan Young, who fled from court in Meridian in December 2023, was arrested five days later in Texas. 

He previously escaped the prison in 2017 with James Sanders. Young was found in Mound Bayou and Sanders was arrested in Arkansas. Not long after their return to prison, Sanders was moved to East Mississippi Correctional Facility, and Young went to Walnut Grove. 

Michael Wilson, who is serving a life sentence for nine charges including two murders, escaped SMCI in 2018 and was found a day later on the Coast. Years later in 2022, he escaped the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility and was found in Harrison County. His convictions are in Harrison and Jackson counties. 

“While understaffing has not been directly attributed to the July 5 escape, it could be a contributing factor that ultimately affects public safety,” MDOC said in a July 2018 statement following Wilson’s escape. 

“The department is committed to finding ways to address the understaffing problem, but until the wages, the necessary security positions are restored, and working conditions of the correctional officers improve, the state correctional system will continue to be at a disadvantage in carrying out its public safety mission.” 

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