Jail Escapee Has Long Criminal Past

Charles Beeney, the man who escaped from the Beadle County jail Tuesday morning, first made headlines in South Dakota a month ago.

That's when authorities say they caught him stealing fuel for a stolen pickup.  He led them on a chase through several counties that eventually ended with a crash near Alpena. 

In addition to the South Dakota crimes, authorities say there were warrants for his arrest in Kansas.

Beeney has been in and out of jail since 1986. Many of the crimes on his record are minor, but he has served time behind bars in Kansas for aggravated robbery and eluding authorities.

Tuesday's escape wasn't his first.  In 2005, Beeney broke out of the Richland County Jail in North Dakota.  He took a metal leg off of a table and used it to overpower a correctional officer, a similar scenario to what happened Tuesday morning.

In the North Dakota case, he pleaded guilty to escape and stealing a pickup and was sentenced to five years at the North Dakota State Penitentiary.

In June of 2010, just a month before he was scheduled to be released, Beeney tried breaking out of prison but failed.