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How an Inmate Used only a Pencil to Escape a South Carolina Jail
Deputies said Charles Dieterich exploited a cell lock with a pencil, prompting a review of security measures at the aging detention center.
- On Tuesday, September 1, 30-year-old inmate Charles Alexander Dieterich escaped the Chesterfield County Detention Center using a pencil to manipulate his cell lock, though deputies recaptured him less than 30 minutes later near Jones Road.
- The escape occurred in the B-Work Camp, a roughly 50-year-old section of the detention center constructed in 1972, where Chesterfield County Sheriff Cambo Streater identified aging door mechanisms as a security vulnerability.
- After exiting his cell, Dieterich walked through the jail kitchen and left through an unlocked door routinely used by staff, then scaled a barbed-wire fence, sustaining cuts during the process before deputies located him.
- Dieterich was transported to McLeod Health Cheraw for treatment of cuts sustained while climbing the fence, then medically cleared and returned to custody facing additional charges including unlawful escape and assaulting a police officer.
- Sheriff Streater called the escape a "serious matter" and announced a full security review, while county officials plan to ask voters in November to approve a penny sales tax to fund a new $50 million jail.
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Total News Sources41
Leaning Left1Leaning Right0Center39Last UpdatedBias Distribution97% Center
Bias Distribution
- 97% of the sources are Center
97% Center
C 97%
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