Four Howard County schools were briefly placed on lockdown Thursday when a state prison inmate escaped from a work crew on an Ellicott City highway.

Nicholas Wachter, 47, of Bel Air, walked away from a Department of Corrections crew picking up trash on Route 29 at Maryland Route 40 in Howard County about 9 a.m., Maryland State Police said.

“They don’t have that big of a crew that security wouldn’t notice when someone is missing,” said Danielle Wilmsen, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

“Security is responsible for gathering the rest of the inmates and returning to the institution so they can notify police to look for the person.”

This story continues below
Advertisement

State police, assisted by Howard County police, dispatched helicopters and K-9 units to search for Wachter, who is serving six years at Brockbridge Correctional Facility in Jessup for burglary and forgery.

Wachter was apprehended a short time later when a citizen reported that he saw the inmate get into a taxicab, said Sgt. Arthur Betts, state police spokesman.

State troopers contacted Columbia Flyer Taxi Service and learned that Wachter had taken the cab to his house on the 200 block of Crocker Road in Bel Air. He was arrested without incident, Betts said.

“He went home,” Betts said.

Mount Hebron High School, Patapsco Middle School, and St. John’s Lane and Hollifield Station Elementary schools were locked down about 9:35 a.m. after Howard County police notified them of the inmate’s escape.

The schools were back in regular operation by 11 a.m. when Wachter was apprehended, according to the school system’s public information office.

Mount Hebron used a modified lockdown, which closed the building to outside parties but still allowed students to move between classes, Principal David Brown said.

“There are several stages of lockdowns,” Brown said. “The modified lockdown is used when there’s no serious threat.”

Mount Hebron senior Sean McCarthy was in the middle of calculus class when the lockdown began, but he said no one panicked. McCarthy said the principal announced someone who had escaped from a correctional facility was seen near the school.

“We just had a lockdown like three weeks ago because the police brought the dogs in to search for drugs, so we knew it was serious right away,” McCarthy said.

“It really didn’t affect us since it wasn’t like we had to get on the ground and get away from the doors and windows. We just kept learning, and when the class was over, we went to the next class.”

The school is about a mile and a half from the site where the prisoner crew was working.

The schools sent parents a notification of the situation through eSchoolNewsletter, a communication tool principals use to send parents and students information regarding school activities or emergencies.

jkowalkowski@baltimoreexaminer.com

cpeirce@baltimoreexaminer.com