An escapee is still on the loose, but investigators say he is back in the Augusta area.

Otis Keith Pearce had outstanding warrants for several burglaries, but he escaped from MCG last week after being treated for a car accident.

Investigators believe Pearce ran off to North Carolina before returning Sunday and going on a violent rampage.

"He will hurt anybody," said Lisa Lamonica. She says Otis Keith Pearce came through her neighborhood on James Drive kicking down doors.

"He started breaking stuff," she recounted. "I was crying and begging him not to hit me and to stop hitting my husband."

Now Lamonica and her husband both have wounds, physical and emotional.

"I won't stay here by myself, and I used to stay here with my door open," she said.

"It's a sad state of affairs, I wish he could get the help he needs without going to prison for it," said Lamonica's brother Harvey Lashley. He says he was best friends with Pearce for 20 years, but recently that all changed.

"We were driving along, he'd been drinking and doing pills, we just had a little argument, he reached over . . .slapped me in the side of the head," he recalled.

Now Lashley and Pearce are on opposite sides of the law.

"Our concern is he may try to do this again, if so we want to get him before this happens," said Richmond County Investigator Shawn Newsome.

"If he did that to us, nobody stands a chance unless he wants to let you live," said Lashley.

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