Travis Shaquann Fair, 36, left the federal correctional institution in Edgefield, S.C., on Sunday, Nov. 8, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Investigators later traced him to a hotel on Tunnel Road, a busy commercial corridor just east of downtown Asheville near the Interstate 40 and Interstate 240 interchange, about 150 miles from the prison.

U.S. marshals arrested Fair there without incident. Asheville police and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation assisted in the search.

Federal officials have not said how Fair managed to escape from the Edgefield facility, a men's medium-security prison that also operates a minimum-security satellite camp.

Fair was serving an 80-month sentence for possession of a firearm by a felon. A 2022 news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina alleged that Fair illegally obtained a gun by having his girlfriend purchase it for him in what prosecutors described as a straw purchase. That case originated in Asheville, the same city where he was ultimately recaptured.

The arrest closes a brief but unsettling episode for western North Carolina, where a federal fugitive with a gun-related conviction was able to travel undetected across state lines and settle into a hotel in one of the region's most heavily trafficked areas. The case also raises questions about security at the Edgefield prison, which houses federal inmates in a medium-security setting with a lower-security camp on the same grounds.

Fair's escape and capture come as federal prison staffing and oversight have drawn increased scrutiny nationally, with advocates warning that chronic understaffing can create openings for escapes and other security failures. It was not immediately clear whether those concerns played any role in this case.

Fair now faces the prospect of additional federal charges related to the escape. He remained in custody Tuesday. Authorities did not release further details about his movements between Sunday and his arrest.