(Court TV) —It was one of the biggest prison escapes in Texas history. Seven inmates overpowered and restrained nine civilian maintenance supervisors, four correctional officers and three uninvolved inmates. They made their way out of the Connally Unit Prison and eluded police for more than a month.

By the time they were captured, a Irving, Texas police officer, Aubrey Hawkins, had been shot and killed in a robbery gone awry, and one of the seven escaped prisoners had committed suicide.

Aubrey Hawkins

The remaining six captured alive found themselves facing capital murder charges.

The Great Escape

At the time of the December 13, 2000 breakout, the reported ringleader of the Texas Seven, 30-year-old George Rivas, was already serving 18 life sentences. Michael Anthony Rodriguez, 38, was also serving a life term, while Larry Harper, 37, Joseph Garcia and Patrick Murphy, Jr., 39, all were serving at least 50 years.

Donald Keith Newbury, the member with the longest rap sheet of the group, was serving a 99-year term. The youngest member, Randy Halprin, 23, was serving a 30-year sentence for injury to a child.

All were incarcerated at the Connally Unit Prison, a maximum-security facility in Karnes City, Texas, south of San Antonio.

Using several well-planned ploys, the seven convicts overpowered and restrained nine civilian maintenance supervisors, four correctional officers and three uninvolved inmates at approximately 11:20 a.m. The escape occurred during the slowest period of the day when there would be less surveillance of certain locations like the maintenance area — during lunch and at count time.

In many instances, one of the offenders would create a reason to call someone over, while another hit the unsuspecting person on the head from behind.

Once the victim was subdued, the offenders would remove some of his clothing, tie him up, gag him and place him in an electrical room behind a locked door. Fourteen prisoners and uninvolved inmates were bound and gagged.

The attackers stole clothing, credit cards, and identification from their victims. The group also impersonated prison officers on the phone and created false stories to ward off suspicion from authorities.

After that, some of the group made their way to the back gate of the prison, some disguised in stolen civilian clothing. They pretended to be there to install video monitors. One guard at the gatehouse was subdued, and the offenders raided the guard tower and stole numerous weapons.

Meanwhile, the offenders who stayed behind made calls to the prison tower guards to distract them. They then stole a prison maintenance pick-up truck, which they drove to the back gate of the prison and picked up their cohorts.

The seven drove away from the prison.

The prison maintenance truck that the escapees stole was later found at a Wal-Mart in Kenedy, Texas, about three miles from the prison. It was there that the group picked up their getaway vehicle, which authorities say was provided by escapee Rodriguez' father.

A surveillance camera at a nearby ATM caught a blue car pulling away from the Wal-Mart area, throwing off authorities for a short time when they thought the car was involved in the escape. But they soon learned that the car actually belonged to an ordinary shopper.

The getaway vehicle was later found about 50 miles from San Antonio.

On the Run

While the escapees were on the lam, they made their way through Texas and all the way to Colorado, stopping three times along the way to commit robberies.

On December 15, the group robbed cash, two-way radios and police scanners from a Radio Shack in Pearland, Texas.

Three days later, they stole thousands of dollars from an Auto Zone store in Pasadena, Texas.

By December 21, the group had traveled approximately 500 miles away from the prison and were in the Dallas area.

Christmas Eve

Three days after arriving in the Dallas area, the seven allegedly robbed Oshman's Super Sports USA Store in Irving, Texas. The convicts allegedly struck around closing time and, holding several employees hostage, stole $70,000 in cash and checks, at least 40 firearms, ammunition and clothing. On their way out, while they were loading their vehicle with the stolen goods, Officer Aubrey Hawkins arrived at the scene.

Hawkins was shot 13 times — including six bullets in his head — and was run over by the escapees' car as they fled the scene.

Crime scene evidence also shows that there was in excess of 20 shots and that at least five .357 magnum pistols were used. Autopsy results were able to link the wounds to at least two pistols, but the others could not be matched to weapons specifically. When the guns were later found, many were dissembled and it is unknown which convict used which pistol.

Rivas later said he initially fired two warning shots at Hawkins when he wouldn't follow orders to raise his arms.

He said he fired one shot to each side of Hawkins' chest, knowing that Hawkins would be wearing a bulletproof vest. Rivas said he himself was then shot at twice, and when he saw "white" with pain, he fired three shots at Hawkins, which he concedes could have been fatal.

Prosecutors, however, believe Hawkins was surrounded by the whole group upon his arrival and was the target of a continuous barrage of gunfire by all seven.

The shots Rivas received were not from Hawkins' gun, leading to the logical conclusion that they came from one or more of his fellow convicts.

Rivas treated his wounds in a hotel room with Neosporin and dental floss.

The Journey Continues

After the sporting goods store robbery, authorities expected the group to head south into Mexico, and thus heavily patrolled the border.

But the Texas Seven had a different idea. In order to avoid a snowstorm, the group headed north, all the way into Colorado.

The Texas Seven made their way from Texas to Colorado

Escapee Patrick Murphy said the decision to stop in Colorado was a random choice. The group spent time in Pueblo, stopped in Colorado Springs where they purchased a Jeep and a motor home, and then made their way to Woodland Park, Colorado, a bedroom community not far from Colorado Springs.

They arrived on New Year's Day and parked their motor home in the Coachlight Motel and RV Park in Garden of the Gods, Colo.

They lived there for almost a month during which time they tried to blend into the community, acting as and convincing others that they were Christian missionaries. They attended church meetings and, despite the intense manhunt to find them, circulated in the community, even frequenting a local Texas roadhouse style bar.

At some point, the group purchased a brown van.

On January 21, 2001, a friend approached the trailer park owner and told him he suspected the group of travelers was the Texas Seven. After viewing the "America's Most Wanted" Web site, the owner was convinced his friend was right and contacted local police, who then contacted Texas authorities.

The Capture

The next day, acting on the tip, police found five of the Texas Seven in Woodland Park. Authorities first captured Rivas, Rodriguez, and Garcia at a local convenience store. The three surrendered peacefully.

They then descended upon Halprin and Harper at the trailer park. To avoid capture, Harper committed suicide by shooting himself twice inside the group's trailer.

Halprin surrendered peacefully. Authorities found cash, ammunition, two-way radios, bulletproof vests, and loaded weapons at the scene. Some of the weapons were from the prison and some were from the sporting goods store the men had robbed.

Newbury and Murphy, however, were still on the loose.

Before the initial group was captured, Newbury and Patrick Murphy had taken off for Colorado Springs. However, Newbury's fear of being caught did not prevent him from increasing his exposure by taking up with a local "massage therapist" in Colorado Springs. At his trial, George Rivas said the group was falling apart at the time they split up.

On January 22, 2001, Newbury and Murphy checked into a Holiday Inn using false identifications and cash.

The following day, authorities found the brown van Newbury and Murphy used at a parking lot near a Quality Inn and Hungry Farmer restaurant in Colorado Springs. Acting on a tip from a hotel clerk, authorities zeroed in on Newbury and Murphy in the hotel, which was about 20 miles from Woodland Park where the others were captured.

Police say that when they initially called the escapees' hotel room, Murphy answered and said, "You got us. I don't know how you guys did it, but you got us."

By 10 p.m. on January 24, local police, the FBI, the U.S. Marshal Service, and the Bureau of ATF descended upon the Holiday Inn. Six hours of intense negotiations followed — including a television interviews via telephone with Eric Singer, an anchor at KKTV.

During their five minutes each on the air, Newbury and Murphy railed against the Texas prison system and said they wanted to open people's eyes to the situation.

Singer said that of the two, Newbury was the angry one — the "James Dean, the rebel without a cause." In his interview, Newbury pointed out that the escape was conducted as peacefully as possible, that the prison officers were hurt very little and only if they resisted.

"I've done crime, you know, you got to face the music. But there's got to be something within reason in the state of Texas," Newbury said during his interview. "They're giving kids so much time that they will never get to see light again. Their life is gone. Now all they are is a roach in a cage. Things have to be changed, there has to be more rehabilitation in the system down there."

Newbury, who was serving a 99-year term for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, also denounced his sentence as unfair and out of proportion with lesser sentences people received for what he considered greater crimes. He said the system is designed to "make you fall" and talked about being told to quit his job when he was on parole "doing good." He talked about having to threaten to beat up one of his attorneys in order to get a new one because the attorney never came to see him.

Before the capture, Donald Newbury's wife, Jacqueline, is reported to have pleaded for his surrender. She is quoted as saying, "I don't want him hurt. I don't want him dead," and "Donald, please come home, or give yourself up — we don't need any more hurt. The kids have been hurt through all of this. I've been hurt, your mom, your sister. Your grandchildren."

Murphy and Newbury surrendered peacefully, emerging shirtless from the hotel.

Authorities found about a dozen weapons including assault rifles and shotguns at the scene.

The Aftermath

The surviving six escapees were indicted on capital murder charges by a Dallas County grand jury on Feb. 1, 2000.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice also took a hard look at the escape, issuing a report.

The report, a "Serious Incident Review," concluded that the prison staff missed critical opportunities to prevent the escape.