Pike County sheriff’s deputies captured a convicted sex offender who went on the lam last week.
Authorities arrested 41-year-old LeRoy Taylor III on Friday when Taylor’s church pastor turned him in after reading an Enterprise-Journal article that named Taylor as a wanted man, Chief Investigator Lance Falvey said.
Taylor, of 4085 Emerald State Line Road, northeast of Osyka, faces a charge of failing to register as a convicted sex offender.
He is being held in the Pike County jail in lieu of $5,000 bond.
A photo of Taylor appeared next to an article in the Enterprise-Journal on Friday that asked readers to contact the sheriff’s department with any information as to his whereabouts.
Taylor, who goes by the alias “Pooke,” was supposed to register on Sept. 11 but allegedly failed to do so,
Falvey said investigators receive notification from the state’s sex offender registry any time a convicted offender misses his scheduled registration date.
“This is his second time being non-compliant,” Falvey said at the time. “He did the same thing at approximately the same time last year.”
The 41-year-old pleaded guilty in Pike County in 1999 to a charge of touching or handling a mentally defective person for the gratification of lustful purposes, Falvey said.
That charge came as a reduction from a sexual battery indictment billed by a grand jury in October 1998.
He received a sentence of 10 years, eight suspended, post-release supervision and was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment.
The state mandates convicted sex offenders register every 90 days and every time they move to a new address.
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety hosts the state’s sex offender registry website, designed to disseminate information to the public.
It can be viewed at state.sor.dps.ms.gov.
