Local

Grandmother of cousins who escaped custody speaks

AVERY COUNTY, N.C. — Officials with the McDowell County Sheriff's Department confirmed two inmates who escaped custody in Avery County were arrested Wednesday.

Officials said the two escapees -- cousins Calvin Metcalf and Phillip Metcalf -- were arrested in Gordon County, Georgia, near Calhoun.

On Tuesday, an Avery County sheriff's detective had the Metcalfs -- who were serving their sentences at the McDowell County Jail -- assisting him on some unsolved cases west of Newland.

Calvin Metcalf, 20, and his cousin Phillip Metcalf, 25, overpowered the deputy, taking his service gun and his patrol vehicle.
 
Authorities said the two men were arrested after trying to sell the deputy's AR-15 assault rifle at a convenience store in Mitchell County. An alert clerk called police.

The detective who was working several similar cases in Avery County took them out of jail because the cousins said they could lead investigators to some of the stolen property. 

Deputies said they went to her their grandmother's home after the cousins told them it is where they stashed stolen property.

"We know now that it was a ruse," Avery County Sheriff Kevin Frye said. "This was an escape attempt all along."

Channel 9 talked to the grandmother of the cousins and she said she witnessed the entire event.

She begged her grandsons to stop what they were doing before they took off from her home in Avery County.

"I heard a big bang and I said, 'What are they doing?'" the grandmother said.

She described the noises she heard upstairs in her home after Calvin Metcalf started wrestling with the detective. 

Their grandmother had no idea of their plan.

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