Convicted killer mistakenly released in Louisiana

Louisiana authorities are searching for a convicted killer who was mistakenly freed from a state prison last week – a blunder that reportedly went unnoticed until a tipster called cops wondering why he was back on the street. Laborde said the department processes about 17,000 releases a year.

Benjuiel Johnson, 32, was serving a 40-year sentence for manslaughter and illegal possession of a firearm at the Dixon Correctional Institute when he was set free on September 23.

The report said that, according to the Department of Corrections, Johnson appeared to have qualified on other charges for early release because of good behavior, but his 2013 manslaughter conviction did not show up on a computer file.

“We do apologize to the victim’s family”, she said. The person responsible will be disciplined, she said.

“He’s a unsafe person, but we’re going to get him, we’re going to catch him”, said Tony Clayton, a special prosecutor who assisted Johnson’s conviction. “He got released”, Johnson’s mother, Francel, told WAFB. “If he was smart, which clearly he’s not, looking at the trouble he got himself into, he would turn himself in”. “He got released”, Johnson said. “You told him he was no longer your property, he bonded out, and now you’re hunting him like a dog, like he escaped from prison or something”. But no he didn’t escape.

Johnson had been transferred from state custody at Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson to the East Feliciana Parish jail to be booked on a misdemeanor count of battery of a correctional officer – a count unrelated to the murder. “Y’all opened the doors and let him out of there”.

The department of corrections says it was a mistake that missing paperwork is to blame.

Johnson pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the slaying of 31-year-old Cordies Gales, who was found shot to death in September 2010.

Johnson and another man were both arrested in connection to the case.

Laborde said authorities are handling the search for Johnson the same way they would a prison escapee.