Oklahoma officials searching for 1-armed man who walked away from correctional center

ATOKA, Okla. – Agents and security staff with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections are searching for a man who walked away from a correctional center Monday night, March 11.

James Smith



According to ODOC officials, at around 7:50 p.m. Monday, security staff at Howard McLeod Correctional Center, discovered 39-year-old James Smith missing after a resident near the site called the sheriff’s office complaining of a trespasser on their property.

Smith was serving several Stephens County sentences for armed robbery, firearms possession and escape after lawful arrest.

He is described as white, about 6 feet tall, weighing about 176 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He is missing most of his right arm and a finger on his left hand. He also has multiple tattoos on his legs, back, arms and chest, including a gecko on his left arm, lightning bolts on his right and a shark on his back.

ODOC officials said he is considered armed and dangerous.

The Howard McLeod Correctional Center is an unfenced, adult male minimum-security prison that houses more than 650 inmates outside of Atoka. Officials said ODOC’s Agri-Services’ unit uses the facility’s land, a 5,300-acre site, to produce beef cattle, hay, pecans and firewood with paid inmate labor.