By EMILY SPARACINO / Staff Writer

COLUMBIANA – Authorities have located and rearrested an inmate who escaped from a Shelby County facility in the early morning hours of May 5.

Danny Gene Fair, 43, allegedly escaped from the Alabama Therapeutic Education Facility in Columbiana at about 1 a.m. on May 5, according to an Alabama Department of Corrections press release.

On Wednesday, May 6, at approximately 8:30 a.m., the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call from a local resident near the city limits of Montevallo, who reported seeing someone matching the description of the escaped inmate.

Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies, along with the Montevallo Police Department, Alabama Game and Fish Conservation Officers, and the Department of Corrections canine search team established a perimeter in the area of Alabama Highway 25 and Shelby County Road 216, near Montevallo.

At approximately 9 a.m., the escaped inmate, Fair, was taken into custody by Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies along the roadway of Alabama 25, without incident. Fair is currently being held at the Shelby County Jail awaiting extradition back to the Alabama Department of Corrections.

“This was a true partnership of resources and personnel, none of which would have been successful without the helpful citizen who made the call to the Sheriff’s Office,” Shelby County Sheriff John Samaniego wrote in a statement.

He is serving a 33-year sentence for theft of property.