VILLE PLATTE – A bank robber who escape from jail, robbed another bank and led police on a three-state chase has pleaded guilty.

Brian Keith Soileau, 42, robbed a Pine Prairie bank a year ago.

He escaped from the Pine Prairie Correctional Center on Oct. 13 and laid low in rural Evangeline Parish until robbing another bank on Oct. 25.

That robbery set off a chase/manhunt through Louisiana and Texas and into Oklahoma, where Soileau was spotted in a Walmart by an alert state trooper and subsequently run to ground.

Soileau pleaded guilty to armed robbery, theft of a firearm, simple burglary, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and illegal use of a weapon.

He faces a maximum of 143 years in prison.

Prior to the first bank robbery last year, Soileau used heavy equipment in an attempt to steal an ATM from a Pine Prairie business.

His wife, Anna, was charged in connection with the first bank job and with obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact of simple escape stemming from his breaking out of the correction center.

Status of the charges against her was not immediately available.