Rude Awakening: Illinois murder fugitive rousted from sleep in Georgia

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Garrett Glover, 29, was on the lam for one week but is back in custody nearly 750 miles away from Chicago.

Glover had a rude awakening near Atlanta, where he was asleep on the floor of a friend's apartment. His mugshot was taken shortly after he was hunted down and put in handcuffs, seven days after the accused killer had the good fortune of being accidentally released from jail. Glover will face an extradition hearing Tuesday morning and will likely be headed back to Chicago in a few days.

The U.S. Marshall Service retrieves more than 300 fugitives every day across the country and Glover was one of them. The accused Chicago expressway killer was found in the rural Atlanta suburb of Lithonia, population 1,900. Glover was found sleeping on the floor of an apartment rented by a relative's girlfriend and did not put up a fight.

Investigators have not revealed how long the convicted Chicago armed robber was in Lithonia or how he got there. He was incorrectly out of an inmate processing center connected to Stateville Prison in Joliet on Friday, Feb. 24.

State officers who processed him for parole said they saw no paperwork indicating he should have remained in custody, even though he was supposed o be held in lieu of $2 million bail for a 2012 murder on the Dan Ryan Expressway.

The blunder wasn't discovered until Monday, Feb. 27, when prosecutors were alerted to Glover's change in status by the mother of the murder victim, who had received an automatic text alert from a special notification network.

That gave him a three day head start and state records listed him as an "absconder."

Tuesday in a DeKalb, Ga., courtroom he will stand before a judge at an extradition proceeding. Authorities will move to return him to Cook County. Once there, he will likely face additional charges related to his escape and also a parole violation.

State officials blamed the Cook County Sheriff's Department for providing erroneous paperwork. County officials say Corrections clerks should have done a more thorough background check before freeing someone like Glover. While that squabble is a standoff, the end result is he's back in custody and the transfer practice that was eons old-has already been changed.