Prison escapee caught after checking MySpace

Myspace pages are made by everyone from teenagers to rock stars, but who would have known that prison escapees would have a vanity page on the popular social networking site. Darren Bates had escaped from a Georgia county jail and was arrested in Philadelphia after checking his Myspace account. Bates accessed the page from a public computer at the main branch of the Philadelphia Free Library.

Authorities say Bates regularly checked into his account from the library and used his real name. Police aren’t saying exactly how Bates was caught, but most websites regularly track visitors by the IP address and those addresses can be traced back to a physical location.

Bates had been on he run since June when he escaped the Hancock County Jail. He was facing auto theft charges, but presumably he will face many more charges after he is extradited back to Georgia.