A Pennsylvania man fell to his death trying to escape from Allegheny County Jail, authorities said. The body of Franklin E. Sebetich, 58, was found on Thursday near an intake ramp where prisoners are brought into the jail, police said.

Sebetich was awaiting trial on charges that he shot at police in Washington County after they tried to arrest him in May 2004 in connection with a home invasion a month earlier. Sebetich, who hid in some woods and in a mine near New Eagle during the two-day manhunt, previously spent 20 years in prison for blowing up railroad tracks in Bentleyville in 1979.

In trying to escape the jail, Sebetich pried off a security window, pushed out a metal screen, and pried off a metal bar in the cell, Warden Ramon Rustin said. Authorities found a rope fashioned from sheets and inmate uniforms inside the cell.

"The reason they were 16 stories up is because that height is supposed to be a deterrent. If you get out that window, you face a 187-foot drop," said Rustin.