Texas Escapees ‘Seen’ in Four States

Seven armed convicts who broke out of a Texas prison last month and killed a policeman in a Christmas Eve robbery were still on the run Friday as tipsters reported possible sightings of the gang in four states, police said.

Investigators chasing the group, one of the most dangerous to cross Texas since the 1930s, said they have no hard evidence that the seven left the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where they shot a police officer 11 times during a Dec. 24 robbery in the Dallas suburb of Irving.

“There are certain assumptions we have to go on, concentrating the search efforts in the DFW metroplex and north-central Texas in general and then spreading out from there,” said Irving police spokesman David Tull.

Combined forces from local, state and federal agencies including the FBI were hunting the seven men who escaped from a south Texas prison Dec. 13, leaving a note saying, “You haven’t heard the last of us yet.”

“We’ve had reports that they have been seen in Durango, Colo., southern Oklahoma and Louisiana, all at the same time,” said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Larry Todd.

He said a report that two of the fugitives were spotted trying to open an account Thursday at a bank in San Marcos, south of Austin, also could not be confirmed.

More than 1,200 leads have been received since the jailbreak from Connally prison near Kenedy.

Police released new composite sketches of the seven men--two convicted killers, two armed robbers, a child abuser, a serial rapist and a burglar--based on witness descriptions from the robbery at an Oshman’s Super Sports store in Irving.

The sketches were posted along with prison mug shots of the gang members on the Web site of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (https://www.tdcj.state.tx.us).

Irving police said new analysis of blood found in the vehicle the gang used in its Christmas Eve robbery showed three people had been shot, including Officer Aubrey Hawkins, who was killed as he responded to the robbery.

“We have very good reason to believe that two of the suspects were wounded at some point,” Tull said. “These people are definitely armed and dangerous. We do not want people to approach them, just call the police.”

The gang is heavily armed after stealing 16 guns in the prison break and as many as 40 more--including semiautomatic handguns, shotguns and rifles--in the robbery which also netted them ammo, winter clothes and $70,000 in cash and checks.

Police said the seven were reminiscent of Depression-era robber gangs, bound together by tight discipline under one leader.

Police believe the seven were being hidden by the same unidentified helpers who aided their escape. Though it is rare for a prison escape search to last this long, Todd predicted the men would be hunted down.

“We eventually will get them back,” he said. “Our worst fear is that this will end in bloodshed, and that’s what we do not want to happen.”