Chained Murder Suspect on the Loose After Escaping Custody at McDonald's Drive-Thru

A dangerous murder suspect is on the loose in Indiana after he escaped from custody at a McDonald's drive-thru.

Leon Taylor, 22, was being extradited from Dallas to Chicago to face a homicide charge when his guards stopped en route to feed him — and he gave them the slip.

According to Lake County Sheriff, the transport van had pulled in to the Gary restaurant at around 3PM Monday to make sure he ate before being booked into a local jail, when he asked to roll down the window so he could spit.

That's when Taylor leapt out and ran off — despite wearing a belly chain restraint, handcuffs and a leg brace.

It is unclear if the guards gave chase themselves, but the area was soon filled with police and sheriff patrol cars, K-9 units and even helicopters hunting for the fugitive.

Emergency alerts were sent to local residents' phones to warn them to be on the lookout, but as of Tuesday morning he was still on the loose. Police say he is considered dangerous.

"I just seen a huge commotion – police everywhere," one drive-thru customer told CBS2. "They had three or four helicopters in the sky, they had tanks rolling down – so they were really trying to catch this guy."

Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr. said Taylor shouldn't have even been able to run with the leg brace he was wearing.

"For some reason, it didn't work properly," he said.

Taylor is originally from Hammond, 20 minutes from the site of his escape, so investigators believe he may have had help.

According to the NWI Times, Taylor is wanted in Illinois for the November 19 murder of a 52-year-old man, who was shot and robbed in an alley in East Chicago.

He was arrested in Dallas County, Texas on December 2; it is unclear what he was doing there, or how police knew.

According to Sheriff Martinez, extraditions beyond 250 miles of the jail are handled by the courts, and not the Sheriff's office, which is only given an estimated time of arrival from the  private contractor transportation service — in this case REDI Transports.

According to court records, Taylor is also facing charges for a string of five robberies in the area in 2018; in one incident he allegedly stuck a gun in a man's face and robbed him as he was taking his two-year-old child out of his car seat.

Police initially caught him after a high speed chase, having tracked him down via an ankle monitor from an earlier burglary.