A Philadelphia man’s freedom from the Westmoreland County Prison was short- lived.

Moments after Thomas Lee Williams, 36, was released from the Hempfield jail at about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, police said, he attacked a West Leechburg woman in the parking lot, took her sport utility vehicle and fled with her 1-year-old grandson in the back seat.

Williams crashed two miles away in Youngwood about 15 minutes later, ran into a wooded area and was apprehended, according to county Park Police Chief Kirk Nolan.

Williams was back behind bars Wednesday on $250,000 bail.

Investigators will examine surveillance video from outside the prison. It appears the victims and suspect did not know each other, but authorities are continuing to investigate, Nolan said.

“As far as we know, it doesn’t seem there was any relationship,” he said.

Both the boy and his grandmother were taken to hospitals to be checked. The woman had cuts, Nolan said.

Court interest in a 2016 drug case against Williams was closed during a bench warrant hearing Tuesday morning. He served three to 12 months in that case, but his parole was revoked March 2017 and he was overdue in paying $1,131 costs and fees, according to online court records.

Williams pleaded guilty in January 2017 in that case to dealing drugs at Knights Inn in South Greensburg.

The judge’s ruling Tuesday allowed Williams to be released from the Hempfield jail later in the day.

He encountered the 65-year-old victim in the parking lot and opened the door of her Kia Sorrento, hitting her numerous times in the face, back and shoulders, police said. He took the vehicle and crashed it in the area of Avenue A in Youngwood.

“He tried to get into another vehicle” but was unsuccessful and fled into a wooded area, Nolan said.

K-9 officers from park and Greensburg police flushed him out of the woods. Authorities arrested Williams within about an hour of the assault at the prison with the help of numerous police agencies and Youngwood firefighters, Nolan said.

Williams is charged with kidnapping, robbery of a vehicle and two counts each of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. A Dec. 21 preliminary hearing is set.

Poster Comment:

An expanded and applied death penalty is the only answer to America's drug problem and Mexico and SA's crime cartels. The penalty should be administered quickly in these cases. Users should be given one chance to get their act cleaned up, otherwise they join their dealer in hell.

Not only do we pay to feed him, clothe him, and house him in prison, we also get to pay for his public defender to get him off the hook, and we get to pay the DA and the Judge that will go along with their roles in the botched system.