A Selma woman has been charged with helping four inmates escape the Perry County Correctional PREP Center in Uniontown early Saturday after investigators say she drove to the facility, picked up the men, and took them to her apartment to change clothes and hide from law enforcement.
Keivona Shabrion Lewis, 29, was arrested within two hours of the escape, according to authorities. She faces one count of permitting or aiding an escape in the first degree and four counts of first-degree hindering prosecution, one for each escapee, in Perry County District Court. She is being held without bond.
Two of the four escapees have been recaptured. Jaden Christopher Maxwell, 21, turned himself in Sunday night and has been charged in Perry County with first-degree escape. Johnny Dave Harris Bush Jr., 29, was arrested Sunday afternoon by Midfield police during a traffic stop on the Bessemer Super Highway after officers identified a stolen vehicle using a license plate reader system. The vehicle had been reported stolen from a Selma restaurant. Bush is being held at the Jefferson County Jail pending extradition and faces additional charges in multiple counties, according to the district attorney’s office.
Marquavious Billingsley, 24, and Kevin Gunn, 19, both of Dallas County, remain at large. Anyone with information is urged to call 911 and not to approach or attempt to apprehend them.
How it happened
According to court records filed Monday in Perry County District Court, the inmates staged a fake medical emergency inside the facility at approximately 1:29 a.m. Saturday. One of the men pretended to need medical attention. The group then forced its way through the facility. Court records allege Maxwell employed physical force on a correctional officer, overpowering her and placing his hands on her in order to facilitate his escape.
Lewis was waiting outside. The criminal complaint alleges she drove the four men from Uniontown to her apartment on Church Street in Selma, roughly 30 miles away, where each of the escapees changed clothes and hid from law enforcement.
Lewis was arrested later that morning.
But for most of Saturday, the public knew nothing. Independent journalist Robert Shepherd first reported via social media Saturday afternoon that four inmates had escaped the facility. It was not until Saturday evening that officials released the names and photographs of the four men.
The delay has raised pointed questions in Perry County about why residents were not notified sooner that four inmates facing charges including murder and attempted murder were unaccounted for.
Three of the four escapees are not participants in the PREP Center’s reentry program. They are Dallas County jail inmates housed at the state facility under a separate arrangement because the Dallas County Jail has been closed since an EF-2 tornado struck Selma in January 2023.
Court records reviewed by the Times-Standard-Herald show the three Dallas County inmates were facing serious violent felony charges.
Billingsley, who remains at large, pleaded guilty to felony murder in Dallas County Circuit Court on Aug. 21, 2025, in connection with the May 30, 2018 shooting death of Kenbranesha Rayford on Marie Foster Street in Selma. He was 16 at the time of the offense. Under a plea agreement, he was sentenced to 240 months split 60 months, with 60 months of probation. Because he had accumulated more than 79 months of jail credit by sentencing, he was released directly onto probation.
Less than four months later, on Dec. 3, 2025, Billingsley was charged with first-degree assault after Selma police say he and several others beat a man with a gun at a Selma housing complex. The victim was hospitalized with severe facial bruising. In February 2026, the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles authorized his arrest for violating the conditions of his probation. He was held without bond.
The district attorney’s office then filed a motion to revoke Billingsley’s probation on the murder case, with a hearing set for May 28 — two days before the escape. If revoked, Billingsley faced up to 15 years of suspended prison time on the murder sentence alone. His case history also includes five separate charges of promoting prison contraband.
Maxwell was awaiting trial on two separate attempted murder cases. A Dallas County grand jury indicted him in July 2024 on two counts of attempted murder and two counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle in connection with a March 2024 shooting. A second grand jury indicted him in March 2025 on a third count of attempted murder in connection with a separate shooting in December 2024. Both cases had been set for jury trial on Aug. 3, 2026.
Gunn, who also remains at large, was indicted in October 2025 on three felony charges: first-degree robbery for allegedly robbing a woman at gunpoint; trafficking in stolen identities; and converting a pistol to a machine gun for possessing a firearm equipped with an auto-sear switch. The robbery case was set for trial Oct. 5, 2026.
Bush is the only escapee whose profile appears consistent with the PREP Center’s stated mission. Alabama Department of Corrections records show he was convicted in Etowah County on property crime charges including unlawful breaking and entering a vehicle and theft of property. He was classified at the lowest custody level and had been on work release since at least 2023.
The PREP Center (the Parole and Probation Reentry Education and Employment Program) opened in April 2022 after Gov. Kay Ivey cut the ribbon on the converted facility. The Legislature had appropriated $19 million in 2021 to purchase and renovate the former Perry County Correctional Facility, a privately operated 738-bed prison that had been largely vacant for years.
The program is operated by the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles under Director Cam Ward and serves probationers and parolees in 90-day cohorts of approximately 80 men. GEO Reentry provides substance abuse and mental health counseling. J.F. Ingram State Technical College provides workforce training. As of late 2024, the program had graduated 232 men with a reported zero-percent recidivism rate and has been cited as a national model for reentry.
But the facility has also been housing Dallas County jail inmates since the January 2023 tornado. Ward told Alabama Daily News in December 2024 that Dallas County rents space at the facility, pays for food and utilities, and provides its own staffing. He described the Dallas County inmates as separate from the PREP enrollees.
