Suspected Helper in Prison Escape Seized

While authorities continued to search Monday for a convicted murderer who escaped from Folsom Prison, a suspected accomplice was arrested in San Bernardino County.

Lorenz Karlic, 30, a former inmate who once escaped from prison, was arrested at his home in Hesperia by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies, according to Lt. Mike Yarborough, a prison spokesman.

Investigators also continued searching for the wife of escaped convict Glen S. Godwin, 28, who was serving a term of 26 years to life for a 1980 Riverside County murder.

Authorities said Shelly Godwin, 23, rented a car Wednesday at the San Jose airport, failed to report for work Thursday and Friday and rented another car in Sacramento on Friday.

Shelly Godwin, who married her husband while he was an inmate in 1985, “is being sought for questioning,” Yarborough said.

“She is not being listed as a suspect at this time,” he said.

The suspected accomplice who was arrested Monday was paroled from Vacaville Prison in 1984 after serving terms for murder and robbery in Los Angeles County, Yarborough said.

Karlic escaped in March, 1978, from Deuel Vocational Institution, a state prison near Stockton, but was apprehended in nearby Manteca the same day, Yarborough said.

“We now have evidence which would indicate Karlic assisted Godwin in his escape,” Yarborough said.

He declined to provide details.

A guard discovered Godwin missing at noon on Friday from a garden in an older portion of the prison in which he was supposed to be working. After searching for 90 minutes, officers found that security bars had been cut on a storm drain leading off the grounds.

Guards found prison clothes near the storm drain exit and an abandoned inflatable raft on the opposite bank of the American River, which flows past Folsom.