ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) – Investigators are searching for an inmate who went missing Wednesday from the Anderson County Detention Center.
According to the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office, James Holley Cobb was a trusty and is believed to have walked off while working in a building located outside the gates of the detention center.
Staff at the detention center discovered Cobb was gone just after 6 p.m. after a full inmate headcount, the sheriff’s office said.
The Anderson County Sheriff’s Office said Cobb was serving time at the detention center as part of the state’s trusty program, which assigns inmates to local facilities to help with maintenance and other public works duties if they have exhibited good behavior.
“With a trusty, they have more free range ability to walk around the campus,” said Shale Remien of the Anderson County Sheriff’s Office. “We have a lot of questions ourselves as far as was this pre-planned? Was this something he just decided to do?”
Remien said inmates in the trusty program are supervised while working.
“They have a walkie that they are constantly communicating with their supervisor on,” said Remien. “They do have to have check-ins. That’s what we’re trying to get to the bottom of and why we’ve brought SLED in to figure out. Where was the hole here as to how he was able to walk off?”
Records from the South Carolina Department of Corrections show that Cobb was serving a 15-year prison sentence for entering a bank with intent to steal and grand larceny.
The sheriff’s office said Cobb was originally from the Seneca area.
“We’re going to look everywhere,” said Remien. “His charges had come out of Greenville County. He’s originally from Seneca. We’re not going to stop searching.”
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is assisting in the search for Cobb.
Anyone who sees Cobb is asked to call 911 immediately.
