Who is New Orleans jail escapee Antoine Massey? How the 'Houdini' is among last on the run.

The tattoos of chess pieces etched onto Antoine Massey's cheeks and forehead should make him stand out in a crowd. 

But nearly two weeks after he and nine other inmates at the New Orleans jail squeezed through a hole in the wall and fled on May 16, only 32-year-old Massey and 27-year-old Derrick Groves are still on the run. 

While Groves, with multiple murder and manslaughter convictions under his belt, is among the most high-profile escapees, it's Massey's long criminal history and several breaks from police custody that have earned him a reputation as an escape artist and strategist. 

Houdini 

Matt Dennis, who runs a prominent ankle monitoring outfit in New Orleans, strapped Massey with a monitor that he promptly severed a few years ago.

“Antoine Massey is a Houdini,” Dennis said. “He literally put the ankle monitor on, went straight to a location and cut it off.”

He was captured again hours later, said Dennis, of the Assured Supervision Accountability Program (ASAP).

This month's jailbreak marked a fifth for Massey if you include his twice cutting off ankle monitors, said Dennis.

Massey first escaped juvenile detention. Then, in 2019, he broke out of the Morehouse Parish Detention Center in Collinston, about 20 miles outside of Monroe, with another inmate. They ran through a hole in the fence and escaped in a rental car that pulled up nearby, a Morehouse Parish sheriff’s official said.

Massey was put on an ankle monitor that he violated before he reached Dennis’ outfit, he said.

A man with a plan

Dennis said he has reason to suspect Massey was a ringleader in the mass escape, along with a recent scam he said he’s identified in the jail involving CashApp payments. 

Dennis has said he believes Massey likely left the jail the morning of the escape with money for food and a hotel — and a plan for his time on the lam. 

“I believe (Massey) is the ringleader, and Groves was enlisted because he’s criminally violent,” Dennis said. “(Groves) is going to be the one who scares everybody. Everybody in the world is going to be looking for Mr. Groves.”

A jail worker accused of helping the inmates escape, 33-year-old Sterling Williams, told investigators in initial interviews that it was Massey who threatened to "shank" him if he refused to cut water to the cell. 

Surveillance footage shows Williams standing in the open door of the pod where the inmates escaped, talking to Groves, Massey and another unidentified inmate, according to court documents.

Williams told investigators that Groves tried to take his phone and to persuade him to bring CashApp information to his cousin in the next pod over, according to the documents.

Though an attorney for Williams has since argued that inmates clogged a toilet in the cell, forcing Williams to shut off the water, investigators said in court documents that his actions are ultimately what allowed inmates to pull a toilet off the wall and crawl through a hole behind it to freedom. 

A history of domestic violence 

Massey's long criminal history dates back to at least 2009 and includes violent felony convictions of armed robbery, aggravated flight from an officer and felon in possession of a firearm. He was also sentenced on charges of theft, simple criminal damage to property and twice on tampering with electronic monitoring equipment. 

Massey awaits trial in New Orleans for domestic abuse and theft of motor vehicle, and he’s wanted for a rape and kidnapping in St. Tammany Parish, officials said.

Massey's latest arrest came after what police described as a harrowing fight in November 2024 with a girlfriend that left her with a bruised and bloodied face, raspy voice, eyes swollen shut and trouble swallowing.

The same woman has since been arrested and accused of helping Massey after the jailbreak. She was booked into the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center Saturday on counts of principal to aggravated escape and obstruction of justice, according to jail records.

The Times-Picayune does not identify alleged victims of domestic violence.

In 2024, the woman told officers the couple started arguing at her house in Slidell when Massey went through her purse and found paperwork from a protection order violation report she'd previously filed against him, according to court documents. 

When Massey confronted her, he beat, strangled and forced her into her car, driving her against her will down dark roads in New Orleans East and other areas, telling her "I'm about to kill you," according to court documents. When they spotted a police car near the McDonald's on Elysian Fields, the woman told investigators she jumped out the car and tried to flag the officer down, but Massey caught her and dragged her back to the car, where he strangled her until she lost consciousness. 

Later that same morning, Massey brought the woman to his sister's house, where, after becoming enraged that she was being too loud, he ripped the braids from her head, leaving blood all over the walls, according to court documents. 

She eventually escaped hours later and flagged down a passing car. Her own car was recovered abandoned in the 7000 block of Martin Road. 

Days later, Massey was found in Texas with a Mercedes that was stolen from a party in New Orleans East, court documents say. 

Still on the run 

The wake of the historic jailbreak, which has spurred a handful of arrests and a multi-agency manhunt, eight of the escapees have been captured and rebooked. 

On Monday, Lenton Vanburen Jr. was arrested in Baton Rouge and Leo Tate Sr. and Jermaine Donald were apprehended by Texas law enforcement in Walker County north of Houston.

Corey Boyd, Kendell Myles, Robert Moody, Dkenan Dennis and Gary Price were caught before that. They are being held without bail at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

More than a dozen people have been arrested on suspicion of aiding the inmates during or after their escape.