Prison Officials Tie Missing Guard to Inmate’s Escape

Authorities at the state women’s prison in Frontera said Thursday that a guard who has disappeared may be linked to the Sunday night escape of convicted murderer Jeanette Lynn Hughes.

Ross Dykes, associate warden at the California Institution for Women, said authorities have not ruled out either of two possibilities: that the officer might have aided Hughes in the escape, or that he somehow became a victim.

Authorities refused to release any information about the guard, citing privacy laws. But a reliable source said the guard is a woman.

“We are very concerned that we have been unable to reach this officer,” Dykes said. “We have not ruled out that this officer might be at risk. We are certainly not ready to say at this point that the officer is a suspect.”

Dykes said he was not free to comment whether the authorities had information linking the guard to the escape other than the fact she disappeared about the same time.

Hughes, 36, was serving a 25-year prison sentence for the 1984 murder of her husband in their Huntington Beach home. She was last seen about 6 p.m. Sunday visiting with her father, James Tugwell, in the large visitors lounge.

The visiting period ended at 9 p.m., and Hughes was discovered missing about 9:20 p.m.

Tugwell was observed leaving the visitors area alone. Dykes has discounted speculation that Hughes, who like other inmates was dressed in her own clothes, might have hidden herself among the departing visitors. Security is too tight for that to happen, he said.

There is no evidence that Hughes’ father was involved, Dykes said.

The guard who disappeared got off duty at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, a short time after Hughes was last seen. The guard did not report for work as expected at 2:30 p.m. Thursday. Dykes acknowledged that officials had reason to believe before Thursday that the guard might know something. He would not elaborate.

The guard was assigned to inmate housing and “may have been one of the last persons to have been in contact with the inmate prior to her escape,” Dykes said, reading from a statement released Thursday about the incident.

Since Hughes’ disappearance, Dykes said, “we have had no information of any kind to help us locate her.”

Dykes said earlier in the week that officials found no evidence that Hughes had scaled the 12-foot fence, topped by ribboned wire, which surrounds the prison grounds. Also, he said, they are convinced after a thorough search that the inmate is not hiding anywhere on the grounds.

Hughes made the first escape from the 67-acre maximum security prison in four years. In 1987, she and several other women tried to escape by cutting the bars in their cells. But their plan was discovered before anyone made it out of a cell.

Since then, Hughes has been on “close custody,” which includes being escorted to and from the visitors area. It also means she is housed in an area that does not have the same access to the yard as most other inmates, which makes her escape even more baffling to prison officials.

Hughes was convicted in 1986 for the death of her husband, James Hughes, who was shot while he slept in their tract home. Hughes later confessed that he was killed by her lover, Adam Ramirez, because the two of them wanted the $442,000 from his life insurance. She admitted that she had left a light to signal Ramirez when it was safe to come in, and then later made up a story about a burglar shooting her husband and then hitting her.