Escapee caught in Mitchell

The South Dakota Corrections Department says an escapee who’s been missing for more than two years is back in custody.

Brandon Witt was arrested in Mitchell on Thursday. He was placed on escape status when he left a community service work site in Sioux Falls on October 1, 2021, and failed to return to the Sioux Falls Minimum Center. At the time, Witt was serving a sentence for unauthorized ingestion of a controlled substance from Bennett County.

Failure to return to custody following an assignment constitutes second-degree escape, a Class 5 felony punishable by up to five years in prison.