PALATKA, Fla. -- Two Putnam County inmates captured Saturday evening only miles from the jail where they had escaped three days earlier are now charged with murder.

Charges against Doni Ray Brown, 23, and Timothy Wayne Fletcher, 25, were read during an emergency hearing before Seventh Circuit Judge Edward E. Hedstrom so the pair could be sent out of the county to a high-security lockup, said Lt. Johnny Greenwood of the Putnam County Sheriff's Office

The men had escaped the Putnam County Jail early Wednesday morning. Within hours, authorities say, they had stolen two vehicles and killed Fletcher's 66-year-old step-grandmother, Helen Googe, who owned one of the cars.

Greenwood said the men, alleged accomplices on a previous armed robbery, were accidentally placed in the same cell because of a jail records mistake. Fletcher made bail on the robbery, but was soon returned to jail for several counts of failure to appear on an aggravated assault charge.

Brown was still being held for the robbery, and the two were reunited.

The cellmates escaped by ripping out a sink and toilet combination from the wall with a jack Fletcher apparently stole from a county van during while being transported from a court appearance. They crawled through the hole in the wall, dug under a fence and got through a second barrier.

The two still face the earlier pending charges, and more are possible after an alleged crime spree that stretched up to Kentucky. A nationwide alert was issued after the car stolen from Googe was found there.

The men are also accused of stealing a vehicle in Tennessee before returning to Florida.

Investigators found Brown and Fletcher after setting up a dragnet after getting a tip the men were back in Putnam County. Investigators pinpointed their location by tracing a call made by one of the escapees to a pay phone at the Pamona Park Flea Market.