Death Row Inmate Escapes Texas Prison

Garbed in prison outfits dyed black with felt markers, a group of death row inmates at the state prison near Huntsville quietly broke through a fence in a recreation yard, climbed a roof, then dashed toward freedom in the foggy early morning hours Friday.

Prison guards fired 18 to 20 shots, authorities said, and when the smoke cleared, six of the men were back unharmed in the Ellis I unit--all except 29-year-old Martin E. Gurule, who slipped into the night.

Gurule, the first person to break out of Texas’ death row since the era of Bonnie and Clyde, remained at large late Friday, pursued by 500 lawmen aided by bloodhounds and helicopters mobilized from throughout the state.

Those familiar with the 30-year-old unit voiced surprise that he made his way out of the maximum-security prison, which is outfitted with two fences decked with razor wire, motion sensors and a tower staffed with armed guards. Texas has the nation’s busiest execution chamber.

“I’m really amazed that he got out,” said Selden Hale, former chairman of the state’s criminal justice board. “It’s an old prison, and has been in use for a long time, and is very secure.”

The guards started firing around 12:20 a.m. CST when they saw shadowy figures dash down from the prison roof toward the first fence, prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said. Gurule escaped into an area of sparsely populated woods along the Trinity River, about 80 miles north of Houston.

Convicted of killing a Corpus Christi, Texas, restaurant owner and cook during a 1992 robbery, Gurule should be considered dangerous, Fitzgerald said. But during his time in prison, he was a model inmate, earning custodial responsibilities and the maximum freedom of movement for a death row prisoner.

The escape began with seven dummies fashioned of old bedclothes and left in the inmates’ beds, Fitzgerald said. While correctional officers thought the inmates were sleeping, they had actually remained in the prisoners’ recreation yard after their allotted time there ended Thursday afternoon.

Donning prison clothes painstakingly darkened with black markers, they apparently pulled open the fence leading to the main yard and shimmied onto the prison roof.

After about three hours, they tried to make their break in the dense fog. Shortly after the guards started firing, the six surrendered, but Gurule, who is 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighs about 135 pounds, made it over the two fences and out of the prison.

Only one other Ellis escape has even been attempted in recent years, an aborted try in the mid-1990s. That inmate, who didn’t leave the prison’s perimeter, was caught and executed, Fitzgerald said.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow shot their way into the nearby Eastman Unit in 1934. Killing two guards, they freed Barrow’s cousin, Raymond Hamilton, who was serving a 263-year sentence.

In the coming days, the prison system will begin an internal investigation of how Gurule escaped, Fitzgerald said.

Questioned about longtime complaints of inadequate staffing in the prison system, Fitzgerald discounted the role of staffing in the Gurule case. But he acknowledged the issue has plagued the prison system.

“That is certainly a problem,” Fitzgerald said. “In good times, we have had a hard time keeping correctional officers because when the economy is good, other businesses hire people for more money.” Guards’ salaries start in the low $20,000s, he said.

Housed in Ellis I, most death row prisoners eventually go to the nearby Walls unit, where Texas performs executions. It is by far the nation’s most active death chamber, with 17 people executed this year and a half-dozen more scheduled before Christmas. More than 450 inmates await Texas’ death penalty.

The six foiled inmates were identified as Henry Dunn, 24; James Clayton, 32; Howard Guidry, 22; Poncai Wilkerson, 27; Gustavo Garcia, no age available; and Eric Cathey, no age available.

Dunn was one of three men convicted after a gay man was abducted from a park in Tyler, shot nine times and left in a gravel pit. Prosecutors said it was a hate crime.