HOUSTON – Here’s the question facing the Texas Department of Criminal Justice: How do you lose track of inmates who are supposed to be seriously ill?

Each decade, the Sunset Advisory Commission audits various state agencies. A deep dive into TDCJ revealed a strange dilemma. These are prisoners who are released early because of a terminal illness.

SUGGESTED: A Houston man has been arrested after a wild chase involving a burglary that was caught on camera in Arizona

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Andy Kahan with Crime Stoppers. “How do you go from being released, because you’re supposed to be at death’s door, to now we don’t even know where you are?”

The Sunset Commission found: “During the third quarter of fiscal year 2024, five medically recommended intensive care releasees absconded, meaning TDCJ cannot locate the releasees because they left their approved residence. Instead, inmates died of their condition shortly after being denied MRIS, and others were approved for MRIS, only to die before release.”

“What are their crimes? What are you doing to find them? The public should be notified,” Kahan said.

Get news, weather and more in the new FOX LOCAL app

TDCJ will not provide us with any information about wanted inmates, including their names.

During a Sunset Committee hearing in Austin, state Rep. Lacey Hull pressed TDCJ President Bryan Collier for more information.

“In total, how many felons on medical parole do we not know the location of and have absconded?” Hull asked.

Collier replied, “I can give you numbers, I can go back about 10 years.”

This is not the first time TDCJ has lost track of an inmate who claims to be seriously ill. In 1998, Steven Jay Russell was given a special medical condition, but his illness was fake. He ended up going back to prison after trying to fake his own death.