HOUSTON—A convicted murderer who broke out of a Southeast Texas prison in the days before Hurricane Ike apparently made it through the storm.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials Wednesday released a grainy image of Marlow Wayne Reynolds making a purchase at a convenience store in West Columbia, some 18 miles from the Stringfellow Unit in Brazoria County where he escaped Sept. 9 by climbing a fence at a prison recreation yard.

In the image taken Monday, Reynolds, 54, is wearing sunglasses, a camouflage baseball cap, green polo shirt and jeans. He was buying a gallon of water and looked up directly at the camera behind the cashier at the store.

Reynolds has extensive experience living off the land and has been described by investigators as a survivalist.

He’d been locked up since December 2004 with a 40-year term for murder, possession of a prohibited weapon and tampering with physical evidence, charges from Liberty County. The offenses occurred in September 2003.

Investigators had believed he was hiding out in the woods near the prison, about 30 miles south of Houston, but feared he might have been able to make a much farther getaway in the evacuations that preceded Ike.