Texas Sees First Death Row Escape Since Bonnie & Clyde

Hundreds of officers used tracking dogs and helicopters Friday to search the woods for a murderer who made the first escape from Texas’ death row since a member of the Bonnie & Clyde gang broke out in 1934.

Six other death row inmates fell to the ground and surrendered when a guard saw them jumping from a roof in the prison complex and fired 18 to 20 shots, prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said.

But Martin E. Gurule cleared two razor-wire-topped perimeter fences and avoided bullets to escape, officials said.

“We do not know if we hit him,” Fitzgerald said. No blood was found, either from a gunshot wound or from injuries that might have been inflicted by the razor wire, he said.

Gurule, 29, killed the owner and a cook at a Corpus Christi restaurant during a robbery in 1992. He and his girlfriend, a former employee of the restaurant, both were convicted in 1993. She was sentenced to 25 years.

The red-brick Ellis I prison unit, which houses death row inmates, is about 15 miles north of Huntsville and 80 miles north of Houston.

The Trinity River runs along the back of the prison, and piney woods are on both sides. Guards lined Farm Road 980, the road leading to the prison, as the search continued. Officials said about 500 law enforcement officers, including from nearby towns and counties, joined in the manhunt.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow broke into nearby Eastman Prison in January 1934 with guns blazing. They shot and killed two guards and freed Barrow’s cousin, Raymond Hamilton, who was serving a 263-year sentence.

Later in 1934, Hamilton’s brother, Floyd, escaped from the Walls Unit in Huntsville, which housed death row inmates until Ellis I was completed in the 1960s. He was recaptured and executed.

Prison officials say they believe Gurule and the six other inmates stuffed pillows and blankets in their beds ahead of time to make it appear they were in their cells, then hid somewhere inside the prison after their recreation period ended about 8:45 p.m. Thursday.

Prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said officials believe they broke through the door to the recreation area, peeled back a segment in a fence that separates the recreation yard from the general yard, then climbed onto a roof, where they waited until after midnight.

The inmates shed their white prison uniforms and used felt pens to dye their underwear black, Fitzgerald said, making it harder for them to be spotted in the dark.

But a guard spotted the inmates jumping from the roof about 12:15 a.m. Friday and sounded the alarm. Gurule ran 25 to 30 yards and scaled two fences, about 10 to 20 feet apart, that rim the perimeter of the prison, despite the rolled razor wire atop them.