Celebrated escape artist on the loose again

KENNESAW, Georgia - A man who escaped from a prison van and stole a huge Wal-Mart truck to try to visit his dying mother - and was later celebrated in a ballad for his exploits - was on the loose again Wednesday after escaping from custody in Georgia, authorities said.

Christopher Daniel Gay slipped out of leg irons, waist chains and handcuffs and escaped from a deputy in Kennesaw, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper.

He got away while being transported to Tennessee to face charges of stealing the big truck in January 2007, officials said. He also is accused of stealing country singer Crystal Gayle's tour bus.

Coffee County Sheriff Steven Graves said the deputy, a 40-year-veteran, stopped to eat and use the restroom at a restaurant when the 34-year-old Gay escaped.

After his escape in January 2007 from a prison van, Gay allegedly stole a pickup truck in South Carolina, a tractor-trailer cab in Georgia and a Wal-Mart tractor-trailer full of merchandise in Tennessee.

Gay, who police say is 5-foot-5 (165 centimetres) tall and weighs 64 kilograms, was the main character in a 2007 song titled "The Ballad of Christopher Daniel Gay" by Grammy-award winning bluegrass picker Tim O'Brien.

News reports and O'Brien's song said Gay stole the trailer and tried to visit his mother, who was dying of cancer. She died weeks later and he never saw her.

"Stole a pickup in Carolina, then a Wal-Mart truck with 18 wheels," the lyrics say. "He drove toward his dyin' mama in the Cheatham County hills. And it's down those lanes and back roads the police made their chase. And he almost made her trailer, he almost saw her face."

Police say he abandoned the rig within 50 yards (meters) of his mother's home northeast of Nashville as authorities closed in. Gay was later spotted driving Gayle's tour bus in Florida and was arrested the next night.

-AP