Two convicted killers who tried to escape from Ohio's death row hid a homemade ladder under a pile of snow in an outdoor recreation area and were carrying candy bars, water, matches and extra clothes, according to a report released Monday.
The escape attempt happened even though the prison's security chief had twice been tipped ahead of time by an informant, the report said.
A complacent staff and "gross deficiencies" in supervision of inmates were responsible for the attempted escape from Mansfield Correctional Institution, said the report by the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.
The report released at the request of The Associated Press said condemned inmates Richard Cooey and Maxwell White made a 13 1/2-foot ladder from bed sheets for use during the Feb. 3 escape attempt. The ladder's rungs were made of rolled-up magazines and newspapers, the prison system said.
The two were caught when alarm bells sounded.
The two inmates also were wearing extra clothes and were carrying Payday candy bars, water, matches, blankets, an exercise workout mat and a homemade tool to break through fences, according to the report and prison officials.
The tool was made from pieces of metal taken from a recreation cage inside the prison, the report said.
Death Row unit manager Ron Pawlus was tipped on Jan. 20 and Feb. 1 and told prison security chief John Morrison both times, but the information was never passed on to the prison's deputy wardens or warden, the report said.
Instead, Cooey was made a block porter Feb. 1, a job that gave him full access to areas inside his Death Row housing unit.
The report notes that the items the inmates had been collecting would have been discovered and the escape attempt thwarted if their cells had been searched any time after Feb. 1.
Cooey, 37, was sentenced to die for raping and killing two University of Akron students in 1986. He came within 12 hours of being executed in July 2003 when a federal judge delayed his execution to give his new lawyer more time to study the case.
White, 39, was sentenced to die for killing a state highway trooper during a traffic stop in January 1996.
The escape attempt started around 2:20 p.m. on Feb. 3 when Cooey and White were taken to the outdoor recreation area carrying laundry bags with several items in them, the report said.
"The inmates removed a handmade ladder that had been secreted under a snow pile previously, and proceeded to climb out of the recreation area and drop to the ground outside," the report said.
Andrea Dean, a prisons department spokeswoman, said officials didn't know when the ladder was hidden under the snow.
After they used the ladder to climb the 14-foot walls, Cooey and White tried climbing over an inner perimeter fence. White tried several times to climb the fence after standing on Cooey's shoulders but was unsuccessful, the report said.
But Cooey made it over the fence and was heading for the outer fence when he was caught.
Cooey and White should have been watched in the recreation area and their bags should have searched, Dean said.
Eleven people are being disciplined, including Warden Maggie Bradshaw, who will receive a letter of reprimand, Dean said.
The two were able to escape from the recreation area "because of staff complacency, gross deficiencies in supervision, decision making and policy compliance" by Pawlus and Morrison, the report said.
Both Pawlus and Morrison are on paid administrative leave and face disciplinary hearings later this week, Dean said.