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DALLAS (AP) Officials doubled the reward to $200,000 Saturday
for the arrest and indictment of seven fugitives still on the run
from a Texas prison. They also said a leaked memo detailing the
escape had been misconstrued and that supervisors had never left
the inmates alone.
Part of the memo describing an inmate "picnic" during the
lunch hour that preceded the Dec. 13 escape was inaccurately
reported by the media, said Glen Castlebury, a spokesman for the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
According to the memo, six inmates working in the maintenance
department of the medium-security Connally Unit told their civilian
supervisors they weren't going to the inmate dining room but
planned to eat in the maintenance area.
Castlebury said media reports indicated the inmates were left
alone when the supervisors left for their own lunch, when in fact a
maintenance supervisor had stayed in the room.
"It wasn't like everybody walked away and said 'OK, inmates,
take over,"' Castlebury said.
A seventh inmate probably joined the others after the
supervisors left, the memo said.
Castlebury said the inmates overpowered the remaining
supervisor, then took the 10 civilian workers and a guard hostage
one at a time when they returned from lunch, Castlebury said.
He said a report on the investigation of the escape would be
released around the middle of the week.
"The memo was written and destined to stay in the hands of
people involved in the hunt for the fugitives," he said. "I have
no idea how it went from one set of hands to the other."
The memo was disclosed Friday by KHOU-TV of Houston, which did
not say how it obtained the document.
After overpowering the supervisors, the memo said, one of the
inmates called a guard tower, pretended to be a prison supervisor
and said he was sending a crew to work on surveillance equipment.
An inmate dressed in stolen civilian clothes then tricked the
tower guard into letting him and three other inmates inside, the
memo said. After they overpowered that guard, they had control of
the tower, an armory and the prison gates.
All seven then were able to leave the prison in a truck they had
loaded with provisions, 14 pistols, a rifle, a shotgun and more
than 200 rounds of ammunition.
The fugitives are wanted on capital murder charges following the
robbery of a sporting goods store in a Dallas suburb on Christmas
Eve. Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins was shot 11 times -- six
times in the head.
Authorities across the state had received more than 1,200 tips
by Saturday.
DNA evidence indicated that two of the inmates probably were
injured during the robbery. Irving police said blood from Hawkins
and two other people was found in a vehicle that was stolen at the
scene and later abandoned.
George Rivas, 30, is believed to be the ringleader. He was
serving a life sentence for aggravated robbery and kidnapping in El
Paso.
The others are Larry Harper, 37, serving 50 years for aggravated
sexual assault in El Paso; Randy Halprin, 23, serving 30 years for
injury to a child; Michael Rodriguez, 38, life for capital murder
in San Antonio; Donald Newbury, 38, 99 years for aggravated
robbery; Joseph Garcia, 29, 50 years for murder in San Antonio; and
Patrick Henry Murphy Jr., 50 years for aggravated sexual assault
with a deadly weapon and burglary in Dallas.
Officials doubled the reward for their capture in an effort to
"entice those who are helping the inmates to turn them in to earn
the cash," Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Larry
Todd said.
A Saturday night broadcast of the crime TV show "America's Most
Wanted" featured a story on the escapees and yielded 66 tips in
the minutes following the program, hotline supervisor Jim Layton
said.
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