Updated Jan. 16, 2002, 6:30 p.m. ET
Experts testify about cache of guns and the ultimate capture of the 'Texas Seven'  
Photo
Newbury listens intently as a string of witnesses detailed the Texas Seven's weapons stockpile.

Prosecutors continued building a capital murder case against 'Texas Seven' escapee Donald Newbury Wednesday, calling a parade of law enforcement officials to the Dallas courtroom to detail the fugitive's arsenal of stolen guns and the gang's eventual capture in Colorado.

The witnesses offered little direct evidence against Newbury, the second escapee to be tried for the murder of Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins, but offered strong testimony against the Texas Seven as a whole.

Newbury, 39, faces lethal injection if convicted.

Newbury admits breaking out of the maximum-security Connally Unit prison Dec. 13, 2000, with six other inmates in one of the largest and boldest escapes in Texas history. He confessed to police that he helped rob an Oshman's sporting goods store on Christmas Eve and even fired three shots after Hawkins interrupted the crime. Newbury, however, maintains he never intended to kill Hawkins and did not fire at him.

FBI ballistics expert Brett Mills, who reconstructed the scene of Hawkins' death, said there were at least 15 shots fired, not including those that passed through an open window and lodged in Hawkins' body. The patrolman was struck 11 times as he sat in his car. One bullet hit a wall, three others trailers parked at the loading dock and nine or ten entered the squad car. Mills showed jurors the trajectory of the shots, which lead back toward the store's rear exit.

Of steeply angled shots into the cruiser, Mill said, "an individual walking up very close and aiming at the car would give you that angle."

Another FBI agent, James Mahoney, recalled finding a trove of weapons, including 13 handguns and nine long guns, inside a mobile home the gang was using at the time of their January 2001 capture. Many of the weapons were fully-loaded, Mahoney said.

The SUV in which three of the escapees were later captured was also stocked with guns, including the dead officer's service weapon, the agent testified.

The escapees also carried police scanners, instruction books and a box of blond hair dye, Mahoney said.

Also Wednesday, a string of Colorado law enforcement officers recalled the capture of Newbury's accomplices. A manager of a mobile home park, where the men had been staying for several weeks while posing as Christian missionaries, tipped off authorities, Teller County Sheriff Frank Fehn said.

He said he and his officers cased the suspects' RV, camped on a steep hill in view of Pike's Peak before deciding to wait to make the arrests.

"We realized the terrain would make it very difficult to assault in the dark," he said.

Fehn said the following morning he brought his own RV to the park to conceal teams of federal and local agents. The authorities did not know that Newbury and another escapee had left the park several days before. When three of the remaining escapees drove to a local mall, one SWAT team surrounded and arrested them. A second team at the RV park convinced another escapee to surrender. The last fugitive killed himself in the RV.

Witnesses are expected to testify Thursday about Newbury's arrest the following day in a Holiday Inn.

 
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