The audacious, five-month-long manhunt for the last fugitive from a major New Orleans jailbreak has concluded, with convicted double-murderer Derrick Groves captured in a dramatic, hours-long standoff that required a SWAT team and gas to root him out of an Atlanta crawl space.
Groves, 28, who had been on the run since he and nine other inmates made a spectacular escape from the Orleans Parish Justice Center in May, was taken into custody Wednesday in a southwest Atlanta home, bringing a definitive end to one of Louisiana’s most high-profile security failures in decades.
“His capture brings long-awaited calm to victims, their families, the witnesses who testified… and the people of New Orleans,” stated District Attorney Jason Williams, describing the escape as a “historic failure of custodial security” that had terrorized the city for nearly five months.
The Taunting Escape
Groves was facing a possible life sentence after a 2024 conviction for opening fire at a 2018 Mardi Gras block party, killing two people. He was the last of the ten escapees to remain at large.
The jailbreak, which occurred in the early hours of May 16, exposed staggering security lapses. The inmates, allegedly using an electric hair trimmer to cut through a wall and taking advantage of a faulty cell door, gained access to an empty cell. From there, they reportedly removed a toilet unit and squeezed through a hole behind it—a hole they then mocked by leaving a taunting message on the cell wall: “To Easy LoL.”
The escape went undiscovered for over seven hours, not until a routine morning headcount. While the other nine escapees were rounded up within six weeks, Groves proved the most elusive, prompting a massive multi-agency effort involving the U.S. Marshals Service, FBI, Louisiana State Police, and New Orleans authorities.
A Standoff and a K-9 Discovery
The search culminated in Atlanta after a tip led U.S. Marshals to a home on Honeysuckle Lane.
What followed was a tense, hours-long standoff. Marshals and Atlanta Police’s SWAT team surrounded the residence and, when initial attempts to communicate failed, resorted to deploying gas canisters into the building. Law enforcement officials described a stubborn refusal to surrender.
“They couldn’t find him, they had to deploy gas multiple times into the house and basement,” said Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Fair. Groves was ultimately located only after a K-9 unit from the Clayton County Police Department was deployed into a basement crawl space.
Groves was taken into custody without injury. Footage released by the Atlanta Police Department showed the shackled fugitive being led to a patrol car, where he appeared to be smiling and blew a kiss at the camera, a final, unnerving act of defiance.
Groves is currently being held in the Fulton County Jail on fugitive from justice charges and awaits extradition back to New Orleans. Officials have confirmed he will face new charges related to the escape. The investigation is also expected to focus on how Groves traveled over 450 miles to Georgia and whether he received assistance while on the run—a question that has already led to the arrests of at least 16 people, including a former jail employee and the suspect’s alleged girlfriend, accused of aiding the fugitives.