LAGRANGE COUNTY, Ind. (WOWO): Police in northern Indiana say they've found a vehicle belonging to a convicted murderer who escaped from a Michigan prison and abducted a woman who later fled to safety.

The LaGrange County Sheriff's Department issued a news release Monday afternoon urging people to avoid the area in Shipshewana where the vehicle was located.  Residents in Shipshewana and the surrounding area were also told to lock their doors and stay inside. They're also encouraged to only answer the door for law enforcement.

Meanwhile,Westview School was also notified to lockdown.

Forty-year-old Michael David Elliot was discovered missing about 9:30 p.m. Sunday from the Ionia Correctional Facility in mid-Michigan. Corrections officials say he was dressed in a white kitchen uniform and may have escaped about 6 or 7 p.m.

Elliot was serving a life sentence for fatally shooting four people and burning down their Gladwin County house in 1993.