A state inmate who escaped from the Hinds County Detention Center on Monday was apprehended early Thursday morning in Brookhaven, said Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Dustin Bairfield.

     James Hopkins, 34, was arrested around 4:50 a.m. Thursday at an ATM at Lincoln Plaza on Highway 51 north by authorities from the sheriff’s department, Mississippi Department of Corrections and U.S. Marshals Service. He was driving a girlfriend’s vehicle, a silver Honda Accord, from DeSoto County, Bairfield said.

     Hopkins was serving a 20-year sentence for a conviction of grand larceny, escape, and drug charges from Rankin County.

     Bairfield said MDOC officials contacted the sheriff’s office Wednesday evening to say Hopkins may be in the Brookhaven area.

     “Somebody told them he had been seen in this area around 2 or 3 p.m. that day,” Bairfield said.

     Bairfield said deputies were dispatched to search the areas where Hopkins may have been, but were unsuccessful. The escapee was then spotted early Thursday morning at the ATM and arrested without incident.

     “He didn’t give us any problems,” Bairfield said.

     Hopkins was transported to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Pearl.

     Bairfield said MDOC and Marshals Service officials are investigating why Hopkins, who has family in the northern part of the state, was in the Brookhaven area. He said there was some speculation Hopkins was trying to meet up with friends to get money and continue heading south.

     “It was a little bit of luck on our side,” Bairfield said. “Most of the time when people are passing through, they don’t stay that long.”