The search for a missing prison inmate ended Wednesday afternoon after just a few hours.

Law enforcement apprehended 42-year-old Billy Lee Smith, who walked away from a worksite early Wednesday afternoon and broke into a nearby woman’s home, according to officials with the McDowell County’s Sheriff Office. 

Smith was at a Marion Correctional Institution worksite before he disappeared from the site. 

Police caught up with him in Buncombe County, after he allegedly broke into a woman’s house and forced her to take him to Asheville. Authorities say Smith then released the woman and fled into the woods where he was later arrested. 

Before being found and arrested, authorities reported he was last seen in a field by the Department of Corrections off Old Glenwood Road in Marion, N.C., about 40 miles east of Asheville near I-40. 

He was convicted in 2022 for drug charges and a hit-and-run, the Department of Corrections website shows. He had completed about a year and a half of his sentence and was projected to be released in 2028.