Two prisoners in the Jefferson County, Ind., Jail tried to make a great escape early Tuesday - but instead they only wound up catching themselves.

As a result, Michael E. Riley and Robert Houdini Bartlett probably will face charges of escape and possibly also of battery for shoving a jailer against a wall and taking her two-way radio and her pepper-spray canister.

According to Jail Commander Ken Baker, the following series of events occurred between 2:30 and 2:40 a.m. Tuesday at the jail:

Bartlett and Riley were among 13 prisoners housed in a multiperson cell on the first floor of the jail, down the hall from the jail's control room. They asked Jailer Gail Kimmel, who was on duty by herself due to manpower shortages, to bring them a mop bucket because, they said, someone had taken a shower in the cell and there was water on the floor.

When Kimmel arrived at the cell door with the bucket and opened the door, Baker said, one of the men helped her lift it over the threshold, then suddenly grabbed her by the throat and pushed her out the door, across the hall and up against the wall in a corner. The other man came out the door right behind him and grabbed Kimmel's two-way radio and pepper spray, then pitched the pepper spray canister far down the hallway, apparently so Kimmel couldn't use it to try to subdue them.

One of the men then said, "We're sorry, Miss Gail," before both ran down the hall to the control room. They got into the control room and unlocked the inner door to the vestibule, which opens onto Walnut Street on the east side of the jail. They tried to get out the outer door but found it was still locked. Meanwhile, the inner door clanged shut and locked behind them.

Baker said a couple of the other prisoners in the cell came out into the hall, but only to help Kimmel up and make sure she wasn't seriously hurt. She rushed to the radio dispatcher's office in the sheriff's portion of the building to notify the dispatcher that a jail break was in progress. The dispatcher put out a radio dispatch to all officers in the area, and officers from the Madison Police and the sheriff's office, and an Indiana State trooper who was doing paper work at the jail, all rushed to the scene.

Kimmel was unarmed, as jailers do not carry firearms inside the jail, and she has not yet qualified to carry a baton or nightstick. But she was responsible for the escaped prisoners, and Baker said she ran back to the jail to search for them. Going into the control room, she glanced through the one-way glass into the vestibule - and there Riley and Bartlett sat on the bench, still inside the jail and unable to go either out or in.