Man caught after being released from jail 36 years early

So a man named Willie Joe McAdams was arrested Thursday during a traffic stop at Main and Hillcroft — at first glance, not so unusual. But what makes this arrest different is that McAdams was picked up so he can return to jail: Two and a half months ago, McAdams was accidentally released from state prison 36 years early. Oops.

McAdams was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2004 for shooting Cedric Thomas in the head at a sports bar in March 2003. Thomas lost an eye as a result of the shooting, and we imagine he felt like he didn't have much to worry about when McAdams was sent off to jail. You can imagine Thomas' surprise, then, when McAdams walked up to him in a bar July 4. "What if he still had malice in his heart and wanted to kill me?" Thomas asked. Turns out he didn't: Instead, McAdams shook Thomas' hand and apologized for the shooting. So how did McAdams get out of jail so early? Because of a clerical error, it seems: Harris County DA investigator Johnny Bonds looked into the matter and found that someone at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice "wrote 4 instead of 40" in McAdams' records. "He's not even on parole," Bonds said. "Somebody dropped the ball, that's for sure."

Indeed, McAdams won't be eligible for parole until he's served half his sentence — that's still 16 years from now. "I can think of no legal reason he wouldn't have to go back [to jail]," Dick Wheelan, McAdams' appellate attorney, told the Chronicle. Yesterday's arrest came after police began watching McAdams' house; they followed him and pulled him over when he left home. Lyons said it's rare that an inmate is released early, but it can happen. "We let out hundreds of inmates a day," she said. "It usually goes off without a hitch."