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| Delay Followed Reporting of Escape; One Inmate Caught |
| By St. Louis Post Dispatch |
| Published: 02/27/2002 |
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A cook at the City Workhouse had just finished his shift and was waiting for his bus home Saturday evening when he saw some familiar faces a few blocks from the medium-security jail. 'Got bus fare? asked one. Replied the cook: 'So, you all escaped, huh?' After the prisoners walked slowly away on Broadway, the cook said he ducked into a liquor store at the corner, phoned the Workhouse and reported the escape. He expected police would round up the men. That didn't happen. In fact, it took officials at the Workhouse at least 45 minutes - and possibly as long as an hour and 15 minutes - before they called police. On Monday, one escapee, Larry Catchings, 33, was captured at 6:40 p.m. in Hazlehurst, Miss., about 30 miles south of Jackson. His capture came as a result of a tip given by St. Louis Police Department's Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team to Hazlehurst authorities, said Richard Wilkes, St. Louis police spokesman. The others remained at large Monday while city officials were scrambling to explain how they escaped. Saturday's escape was just the latest in a long history of break-outs and the second in eight days. Since the Workhouse opened in 1966, at least 130 prisoners have escaped, according to figures compiled by the Post-Dispatch. Faced with another embarrassing episode, officials at City Hall called a news conference Monday to announce new security measures: A motion detector on the outer chain-link fence around the facility is being recalibrated so that a person coming in contact with it will be detected. The calibration on the device had been set so low that the five escapees were able to scale the fence without detection. Cameras will be installed on the unmanned guard towers on the Workhouse grounds. Repairs have been made to the areas damaged by the escapees - a grate in a shower area that had been removed, allowing the escapees access to a crawl space above the ceiling, and an outer wall where bricks were knocked out. In addition, Mayor Francis Slay is asking the U.S. Justice Department to assess security at the Workhouse and investigate the latest escape. The others who escaped with Catchings were: David Head, 49; James Morrow, 53; Ira Neal, 50; and Donald Williams, 23. They pulled off their bold move by scraping away masonry blocks and brick mortar above the ceiling with crude pieces of metal, knocking out a section of bricks, scaling 25 feet down tied-together bed sheets to the ground, and then scaling the outer 15-foot chain-link fence. They had a makeshift flashlight for use in the darkened areas above the ceiling, and they protected themselves from the razor wire on top of the fence with heavy blankets. Authorities said the escape apparently took several days to plan. |
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