Police Focus on Possible Accomplices of Texas Escapees

Authorities in Colorado and Texas believe a gang of escaped inmates had help as the fugitives drifted from cheap Texas motels to the Rocky Mountain trailer park where they were caught last week after more than a month of freedom.

George Rivas, the group’s suspected ringleader, said Friday from his jail cell that no one helped the seven men escape. But officials say the fugitives’ actions point to outside assistance.

“We believe we are looking for one accomplice at this time,” said Larry Todd of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Investigators believe the inmates made a telephone call after they escaped from a South Texas prison and then picked up a getaway car, a Chevrolet Suburban, at a Wal-Mart parking lot.

Colorado police also are investigating two people--a drug dealer and a woman who worked at a massage parlor--who may have aided two of the convicts who later split from the group, the Dallas Morning News reported Saturday.

Six of the inmates are awaiting extradition to Texas, where they face capital murder charges in the killing of Irving police officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve robbery at a sporting goods store in the Dallas suburb. The seventh inmate committed suicide Monday as authorities closed in on the group.

Rivas, 30, who had been serving 99 years for kidnapping and burglary, said he and the other convicts just wanted to settle down and “try to be normal.” He admitted shooting Hawkins but said he fired warning shots first. Hawkins was shot 11 times.

“I was screaming at him to raise his hands. He started taking his hands up and then I got shot,” Rivas said in an interview.

“I can’t justify what I did,” Rivas said. “I pray every day that I could get his face out of my mind. It shouldn’t have happened. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Rivas was responding to an Associated Press request for an interview. His call was verified by officials at the Teller County jail in Divide, 60 miles south of Denver.

The seven convicts overpowered guards at a maximum-security prison southeast of San Antonio on Dec. 13 and stole a cache of weapons and a vehicle in their escape.

“No one helped. No guards or inmates,” Rivas said. “No one we encountered helped.”

Rivas said the convicts were careful while on the run, trying to stay at places that did not require identification. Where ID was required, they used cards stolen from guards and other people, he said.

Although two left the group just days before they were arrested, Rivas said the other five were united.

“We had disagreements and conflicts of interest, but we always resolved them as best we could. We already had been through so much together,” he said.

“We could have stayed that way for a while. We just wanted to get jobs to try to be normal.”

Authorities believe the convicts spent the first night in town, then moved to an airport motel in Houston, where authorities believe they robbed a Radio Shack and an Auto Zone parts store. On Christmas Day, after the Irving shooting, the gang is believed to have fled to Pueblo, Colo., then moved to the trailer park in Woodland Park around Jan. 4.

Colorado police were investigating the connection of two of the convicts to a woman who worked at a massage parlor they frequented, and whether Andres Aguilar, a convicted drug dealer, helped the pair rent a room at a Holiday Inn. The men were arrested there Wednesday.

Aguilar denied helping gang members, the Dallas Morning News reported.