FAYETTE &045; Authorities late Wednesday night captured a twice-convicted murderer who had been on the lam since Monday.

But not before he was inadvertenly found by a local family.

Larry Shannon said he and other relatives arrived at his brother Landra Washington’s house on Guice road, just down the road from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at about 9 p.m. Wednesday.

There, they found escapee Darrell Edward Tuggle, who had apparently eaten a great deal of the family’s food. Tuggle was armed with a knife but didn’t injure anyone, Shannon said.

Deputies arrested Tuggle at the scene.

Tuggle, 39, escaped from the Jefferson-Franklin Correctional Facility in Fayette.

Tuggle was serving a life sentence when he escaped on Monday, said Suzanne Singletary, a Mississippi Department of Corrections spokeswoman.

Tuggle is one of two inmates implicated in murder cases who were on the loose after escaping from correctional facilities in Mississippi.

”What he was serving was life without parole plus 10 years. He was sentenced in June of 1995 in Jasper County for burglary of an occupied residence and capital murder,” Singletary said. ”His escape is actively under investigation.”

Singletary said it appeared Tuggle pleaded guilty to the murder charge in Mississippi, likely to escape the possibility that he would be sentenced to death.

An indictment from Jasper County charges Tuggle killed R.D. Mann after breaking into Mann’s Covington County home. Tuggle also was convicted of stealing Mann’s .357 magnum pistol, a .22 caliber rifle and $37 in cash, the indictment said.

Tuggle had a prior conviction for murder in Arizona and was imprisoned from February 1984 to February 1991 for that crime, Singletary said.

MDOC officials said Tuggle was found missing during an afternoon head count on Monday.

They would provide no other details.

Steven Kirkley, 27, who escaped with two other inmates through an air vent in the Marion-Walthall Correctional Facility is also being sought by authorities.

Kirkley was charged with four others in the 2004 slaying of Janell Hatton, whose body was found buried in a shallow grave.

Curtis Dickson, 25, who reportedly escaped with Kirkley, was caught at a hurricane shelter in Florida. He was being held on two counts of murder in the slayings of Johnny Collins, 27, and Jermaine Kelly, 15, of Marion County.

Red Cross officials in Milino, Fla., said they called police when Dickson became angry after being turned away from the shelter.

Dickson is being held without bond in the Escambia County Jail in Pensacola.