Wife charged with helping inmate escape in Wayne County

Authorities said that Joseph Doyle Perkins was working trash detail near Woodland Church Road and N.C. Highway 13 at about 9 a.m. when his wife picked him up in a gold Ford Focus and he escaped.

A deputy later spotted the Ford near Durham Lake Road in Dudley and initiated a traffic stop. When the officer attempted to take Joseph Perkins into custody, a struggle ensued and he escaped again by running across a field and into a nearby wooded area.

Three local schools were placed on lockdown while authorities searched for Joseph Perkins, who was located by a North Carolina Highway Patrol trooper and taken into custody at about 10:30 a.m.

Perkins, 20, of 174 Wilbert Lane in Pikeville, was originally being held at the Wayne County Detention Center on three counts of probation violation and one count of failure to appear in court for a charge of obtaining property by false pretense. He was also serving a 60-day sentence for possession of a firearm by a felon.

He now faces additional charges of felony escape from a local confinement facility, assault of a law enforcement officer and resisting a law enforcement officer.

Layla Perkins was charged with one count each of aiding and abetting in felony escape from a local confinement facility, providing tobacco products to an inmate of a local confinement center, driving with a revoked license and displaying an expired registration tag.

Layla Perkins was being held in the Wayne County Detention Center under $5,000 secured bond.