‘Dangerous’ inmates who escaped from Bethel jail apprehended

Two men — including a convicted sex offender  — who escaped from the Bethel jail on Friday night were apprehended Sunday morning after more than a day at large, the Alaska Department of Corrections said.

Wilson Beaver, 43, and Carl Konig, 31, were arrested by two Bethel police officers after a local emergency dispatcher spotted the men, the DOC said in a press release Sunday.

State correctional authorities have not explained how the two prisoners — who were housed in a unit for high- and medium-security inmates — were able to escape the Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center  late Friday night or early Saturday morning.

Alaska Department of Corrections spokeswoman Megan Edge would only say that the escape is "still under investigation."

An Alaska trooper told Bethel's public radio station KYUK that the men wriggled out a storm grate.

Beaver and Konig both have violent criminal histories.

Troopers in Bethel warned residents that the men should be considered "very dangerous" and had "basically nothing to lose," KYUK reported.

One of the men, Beaver, is a convicted sex offender who was in the jail awaiting a September sentencing for a violent home invasion and sexual attack in Napaskiak last year.

His June sexual assault and burglary conviction stems from an incident last August in which Beaver entered a home in the village of Napaskiak and "put a knife to a female's throat while children were in the residence, and threatened her with violence in exchange for sex," troopers said at the time.

Beaver also has a first-degree sexual assault conviction from the early 2000s.

The other inmate, Carl Konig, has a history of assault convictions.

At the time of the escape he was in jail on two felony assault charges, including one involving a serious injury with a weapon.

Beaver and Konig lived together in a 12-person dorm area inside the prison for medium- and high-security prisoners, Edge said Sunday. They were last seen on video surveillance at 11:21 p.m. on Friday night. It was not clear when or how jail employees discovered they were gone.

The Yukon Kuskokwim houses about 200 male and female inmates, mostly pretrial detainees awaiting the resolution of their cases. At the time of the escape, six staff members were on duty, Edge said.

The last person to escape an Alaska prison was also a violent sex offender.

In March 2015, a convicted sex offender named Kevin Tuckfield escaped the high-security unit for mentally ill prisoners at the Anchorage jail. He roamed the city for hours before being apprehended.

It's not clear what Beaver and Konig did during the day and night they were out of jail. Both will be charged with escape, according to the DOC.

They are being held at the Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center, now under "high security supervision," Edge said.