Death-row inmate relishes freedom after escape

LIVINGSTON, Texas (AP) -- A condemned prisoner who got a taste of freedom last month when he escaped from a county jail said Wednesday his flight was worth it even though he was caught after three days on the run.
"It was great," Charles V. Thompson, 35, said from death row in his first public comments about the Nov. 3 escape from the Harris County Jail in downtown Houston.
"I got to smell the trees, feel the wind in my hair, grass under my feet, see the stars at night. It took me straight back to childhood being outside on a summer night."
Thompson said he rode trains for 21/2 days to near Shreveport, La., and posed as a Hurricane Katrina refugee to get some money before he was arrested there.
"It was short-lived, but I think it was worth it," he said from a tiny visiting cage outside death row in the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Thompson said his flight from the jail, where he had been housed for five months while attending a new sentencing trial, was aided by lackadaisical deputies who allowed him to walk out the front door virtually unchallenged.
"Once I got there and seen how relaxed it was -- they sit ... and play video games, they sleep on the job," he said. "The sheriff said it was human error and nothing is wrong with their policies. I have to disagree."
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