The Men Who Escaped From Death Row And Ran Into The Wilderness | Escape From Death Row | Wonder

a Virginia prison is in the hands of the inmates the terrifying

escape

freezes six murderers from

death

row as the men run free the police race against time to track and capture the

escape

es before they kill a dog The Correctional Center of Mecklenburgh is the pride of the Virginia prison system completed in 1977, at a cost of 20 million dollars, it is state-of-the-art, module C of building 1 houses the most dangerous criminals in Virginia, the

death

row inmates, the double door entrance or Sallyport is the only way in and there is no other. Departure Officer Ron Sawyer is informed that a bomb has been found in Module C.

He is ordered to bring a van to the front of the prison immediately so that the pump unit can be moved and disposed of the pump. Prison policy strictly prohibits opening both doors at once, but this is a matter of life in death. The bomb disposal team dressed in protective gear rushes towards the skill bomb. It is smoking. One of the men sprays the device with A fire extinguisher apparently to keep it cool The biggest crisis in Mecklenburg's brief history has been solved Thanks to the quick actions of a few brave men, the bomb is safely outside the prison gates, but the crisis is just beginning.

What seemed like a bomb evacuation had actually been an escape. The guards are now captive and six of Virginia's most notorious killers are free. A search is underway for six convicted murderers who

escaped

from a state prison in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, overnight. All the inmates were on death row. The six guards armed with homemade knives had left the prison in a van while news of the escape spread, causing commotion. through state law enforcement is the first time death row inmates have

escaped

in U.S. history in this program some of the names have been changed Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation officials wake up from their bed the governor of Virginia issues a state of alert for the Army and Air National Guard the director of the State Police Investigative Division James Letner is brought in to oversee the investigation the governor was extremely concerned about security Of the citizens with whom these fugitives might come into contact had been informed about the background of these individuals, he knew that each was awaiting execution for murder or mass murders and was extremely concerned that we arrest these individuals as quickly as possible. .

Investigator Lettner arrives after the killers have been on the road for over thirty minutes and immediately sets up a search perimeter because the inmates are driving a prison van. The police will increase the search area every time it is excellent or we are locked in. Now locked up, allow them to meet with the director to meet the men who escaped. the news is not good the six fugitives have been convicted of killing a total of 17 people the two most dangerous fugitives of the briley brothers james and linwood the brileys ran a vicious gang in the richmond area the police suspected they had massacred between 11 and 20 people Earl Clanton killed a Virginia woman just months after being paroled for killing an elderly New Jersey woman.

LEM Tuggle raped and murdered two elderly women. Derek Peterson killed a supermarket manager after robbing him of $6,000. Willie Leroy Jones murdered and robbed an elderly couple he asked to be his wife. She prayed for him before shooting him and setting the house on fire. These are the men who escaped from Mecklenburg Death Row. Most of them killed more than once and would probably kill again if they had the chance. It never occurred to me that we wouldn't capture the fugitives. I felt confident as it occurred to me that it would be an absolute miracle if we did it without any innocent citizens coming to great harm.

He installed helicopters with infrared sensors to try to capture the heat of human bodies hidden in the forest. Police know that the longer the killers are free, the harder it will be to recapture them. He will allow her to tour the C-pod where the inmates were housed. Officers conduct a search of each cell and find no clues as to where the fugitives might be headed, but they do find some improvised weapons. The inmates were very clever at both making and hiding weapons in their cells. A search we conducted revealed a table leg that had been used to conceal a hacksaw blade, a handle and some other contraband.

The inmates have been out for over an hour and investigators know they are armed with knives already. who had access to riot gear protected by guards fear that they may have weapons the state mobilizes all possible resources to capture the fugitives a death sentence is already hanging over each of the fugitives these men have nothing to lose the officers comb the perimeter looking for any trace of the killer they find nothing or clues outside the prison leaving their hopes the guards can tell them where the inmates have gone maybe during the escape they heard something that could help direct the search the inmates never talked about where the guards were going they don't know anything the guards' lack of information makes lettner suspect that they may have helped the prisoners escape from his years of experience as a state police investigator in other prison incidents lettner knows that the prison guards can be susceptible to bribes in 1984 Virginia prison guards had a starting salary of less than $13,000 even college campus police officers were paid more guards complained that inmates frequently assaulted them intimidation and low pay affected his morals first, let me say this as Letna begins interviewing security personnel and learns that tensions in Mecklenburg have increased over the past two years since the execution of Frank Coppola, convicted of beating a woman to death in a robbery that Frank Coppola steadfastly maintained. his innocence, but after being on death row for five years he stopped his appeal and asked the court to execute him.

Coppola's execution marked a controversial change of heart. He was the first man in Virginia to face the electric chair since the six-year death penalty was reinstated. Years earlier, when Coppola was executed, something went terribly wrong: his head on one of his legs caught fire. Human rights advocates accused prison officials of torture, and among inmates Coppola became a martyr. Frank J. Coppola was executed at 11:27 p.m. in the manner prescribed by law, fears had been growing among the merged death row inmates, the state would embark on a series of executions author Jill Jackson When Coppola was executed I think the other death row prisoners began to see that they too They could be executed Appeals beforehand, they dragged him away, suddenly here's this guy that all the other death row prisoners look up to and he's the first one to leave and at that moment the other death row prisoner said this could happen to me pretty quickly, two months before.

The escape: A death row inmate sent an anonymous tip to the state's deputy attorney general. According to the informant, a bomb was being built as part of an escape plan. The plan also involved exchanging uniforms with guards. This information was transmitted to the director. ISM agents ordered to extort methodically searched every cell on death row, but found no bomb-making materials or anything to indicate a bomb was being built. Jim Lettener finds it hard to believe that the guards ignored the plan; suspects one of them may have actively helped in the escape, a breakout that freed six of Virginia's most dangerous men more than an hour after escape police in West Virginia mobilized and searched the area around the prison. of Mecklenburg in a search for six fugitive murderers as they spend the minutes they fight to keep.

The police in your search perimeter begin to fear that if the fugitive killers escape beyond the perimeter, innocent people could die, but it is so important that you remember every detail, no matter how unimportant it may seem to you inside the prison. James Lettner asks the guards for fear of one. Of them help the inmates escape, all the others remain affirmative, exactly how the escape occurred and where these dangerous men could be. He calls each officer to account for his actions while Letner interrogates the guards. He begins to understand how the escape unfolded. Five guards stand watch. is the c-pod convict doing his daily exercise Willie Turner and another inmate approached an officer telling him that they want to return early one of the men says he has a knee injury the other says he wants to use the bathroom this is against of prison policy, state police investigator James Lettner, it was a mistake to allow those two individuals to return separately from the others.

If one inmate returned, everyone was supposed to return. The reason is that by bringing those two inmates back early. He removed two of the correctional officers from the recreation yard and returned them to the cell area, reducing the number of eyes that were available to observe the remaining inmates as they returned from recreation to their cells. Now the ratio of guards and prisoners is altered in the yard. only three officers remain to guard the remaining inmates the other inmates are escorted to their cells the guard did not seem concerned they are outnumbered three to one the correctional officers assumed that nothing was going to happen that everything was fine that they had a safe operation and that they simply did not have to follow these rules if they had been more attentive they would have noticed that a plan is already in motion a plan whose success or failure depends on one man, Earl Clanton, the plan also depends on the complacency of the guards. without bothering to count heads the inmates pile up and start pushing, distracting the officers without anyone noticing Clanton goes into the guards' bathroom his job to wait for a signal a ruthless killer Clanton was chosen as the man to carry out the first attack in 1980 he stabbed an elementary student school librarian eight times in the head then took her coat belt and strangled her to death because they didn't count the heads the guards have no idea that Clanton has gone missing the letters the report would later indicate that this was a violation of security protocol is difficult.

I think when you are dealing with people where everyone has murdered at least one person and in some cases multiple murders, prison officials would become complacent and feel that they did not have to count these people or know where they were at all times. It's hard to believe that would happen, but he did it in two sensible. Guards escort inmates back to the living room. They never realized that one of them is missing. A guard tries to open the bathroom door, but it is closed. The lock bar should have sent a red warning. flags in such a situation prison policy dictates that maintenance must be called and all inmates must be placed in their cells, but the guards do not do this.

The police are starting to panic. Almost two hours have passed and the fugitives have not been discovered. The officers are now. Working on a wide perimeter, they know that the larger the perimeter, the easier it will be for inmates to pass by them. Police are looking for the van used in the getaway, but have no idea which direction to look. I could not? uh, James Letta continues. In his investigation, when questioning Nurse Rose Clark, it is customary for Nurse Clark to draw water from the guards' bathroom before distributing medications to the inmates without her knowledge. This is where Earl Clanton is now hiding.

The bathroom door seems stuck. Nurse Clark notifies the guard that she recognizes the problem, but nothing is getting these kids on our medication. Nurse Clark decides to distribute the medicine without water as she has done in the past while she makes her rounds. One of them complains that his toilet is clogged and creates a distraction to distract the guards. Of what's really happening, Officer Hunter joins Nurse Clark as he continues making his medication rounds to the other pods in the building. The fugitives were scammers, they were cunning and knew the customs of the street and how they could get around these correctional facilities.

Officers had observed from the moment they entered the institution that certain rules were not being followed and that worked to their advantage in the Mecklenburg building. One is divided into three modules a, b and c. The module is divided into two sections with a cabincontrol. separating the sections, the man controlling the c-pod was Rick Hughes. The electrically activated locks give Officer Hughes control over who enters and exits death row. News tells Letner that one of the inmates caught his attention, it was Joe Jarrett who was housed in the pods. Jarrett on the left side in our question used to pass a book: inmate James Briley, who was on the right side of the quad, Linwood Briley and his brother James received death sentences for seven murders, in one case they repeatedly raped a woman who was within earshot of your common-law partner.

Then, her husband and her five-year-old son killed all three. Officer Hughes leaves the control cabin door ajar as the prisoners have seen him do dozens of times before he has no idea that the prisoners are already arming themselves with knives. a guy named Willie Turner, he was kind of a genius in terms of figuring out how to make weapons out of the stuff around him in the prison cell and how to hide it and basically take the metal off from around the toilets or the sides. of the door or something and sharpen it and make a knife out of it convicted of killing a jeweler in 1978 and sentenced to death Willie Turner never finished fifth grade but learned to read and write in prison and claims to have made a key to every cell who once occupied the guards suspect him of being behind the plan to escape on James Briley's signal Clanton runs out of the restaurant, presses a control button that frees the other inmates the prisoners take control of the c-pod in just three minutes each of The guards recount how they took him hostage and stripped him of his uniform.

The inmates take the only defense. The guards have their batons along with their watches. Rings and money. The guards are tied up and chained. Their own wives are blindfolded. They over here. The inmates discuss how they need to capture someone in authority time. Everyone else just relaxes. The senior officers watch Commander Lieutenant Mark Johnson let his report state that was in building three when he responded to a page from building three located on the opposite side of the Mecklenburg houses the shipping department Lt. Johnson is asked to call the c-pod extension one room the phone is answered by One of the guards held hostage Lt.

Johnson has no idea that the guard is being held at knifepoint. The guard tells Johnson he needs help with inmate Jarrah Tano, who he says was injured in an altercation. Johnson calls the shift commander and orders him to report to the c-pod nurse. Clarke finishes passing out her medication to the rest of the inmates in building 1. The exit is. Through this locked door, unfortunately, Officer Hunter lost his key and decides to return to see the capsule not knowing that he is now in control of the inmates. Hunter walks straight into his arms. Hunter has descended to the lower level of the capsules where he joins the other hostages the conspirators need.

Hunter's uniform is forced to strip down to his underwear, then he is blindfolded and tied up. Inmates know security procedures and make the system work against itself. They got the other guards to come too so they could watch by just faking emergencies. They needed help with the inmate. so-and-so who was not taking his medication or was resisting one thing or another creating the illusion of a fellow correctional officer in trouble. The inmates lure other guards to view the capsules, one by one, then capture them and strip off their uniforms. Nurse Clark. She's starting to

wonder

what's keeping Officer Hunter going when a guard finally arrives.

She's relieved. She has no idea that her ordeal is just beginning. In West Virginia, six convicted murderers have escaped death row and been on the loose. For more than two hours, investigators have no clues as to his whereabouts police are frantically searching a wide perimeter using every resource available, struggling to hold it desperate to contain the inmates Virginia State Police Investigator Jim Letner He continues to gather information for his report by questioning prison security personnel in the hopes that they can provide some clues. Where the escaped inmates are headed Each officer recounts their terrifying experience one by one The hostages are taken in capes The inmates use their uniforms as a disguise to lure more officers into traffic The guards tell the leopard James Briley wanted to kill some hostages who They brought in a few to kill there were too many Briley said he was afraid they would become unmanageable Willie Turner one of the inmates convinces Briley not to do it they had agreed that there would be no murders Derek Peterson returns to Nurse Clark they take her to a cell Nurse Clark is alone when Earl Clanton appears.

Clanton had been convicted of killing two women and now has his eyes on Nurse Clark surrounded by convicted murderers bent on freedom or revenge. Security personnel doubt they will live to see the morning. Nurse Clark's screams enrage them but they can't do anything Linwood Briley joins Earl Clanton as they begin sexually abusing a nurse Wilbert Lee Evans stops the men Willie Turner reminds Linwood to remember the plan It's been 20 minutes since that Lieutenant Johnson received a report about an emergency on death row, he begins to

wonder

what is going on at C Pine, he sent the shift commander to help, but he never reported back.

Johnson investigates the situation himself. The stair doors close automatically behind him. The inmates threatened to kill Johnson if he doesn't while watering the inmates once. The hostages are of no use to them anymore. They fear that they will all be killed. Three hours have passed since the escape and the fugitive has still not been seen. The authorities are beginning to fear that they have left the search perimeter. If that is true, many innocent people They are in danger as the prison guards continue their story. Jim Letten still hopes to find a detail that will lead him to the killers in the main control room.

Officer Cindy Smith learned that an inmate was injured, but no one had called paramedics in the last hour several officers and supervisors had gone up to death row none had reported Officer Smith begins to worry about the inmates on death row death have taken all the guards and security belts and as hostages having all the uniforms and the money they need it is time to escape and leave the building they move the hostages to a janitor's closet at the end of SEPA James Briley grabs a tv would somehow have to pass it off as a bomb now that the inmates have control of c-pod they have to leave the building in the center of the building one is a main control room that controls the door to the outside the inmates have to take controlling this room in the main control room Officer Smith is still waiting to hear from the officers sent to see the pod, then he gets a call, it seems that Lieutenant Johnson tells him that they are sending a man to relieve her and that his supervisor, who was a hostage, call her and tell her that another guard who she will not relieve her of her duty.

There is no doubt who the guard was. Peterson and Clanton, now dressed in guard uniforms, head to the main control room. Officer Smith has no way of knowing that the officer sent to reliever is Derek Peterson. The prisoners now have control of all the doors in the building, but there is only one way out of the prison compound, Sallyport James Briley forces Lieutenant Johnson to request a ban. Both vehicle exit ports are open. He claims they have an emergency. The van must be taken to the main departure port. Willy Turner has an appeal pending and is volunteering. to stay behind and protect the hostages in the c-pod control cabin Joe Jarrett Ono, who also stays behind, presses a button to open the staircase door, the rest of the conspirators disguised as guards flock down to the loading dock, Lieutenant Johnson is no longer needed, so the guard commander is imprisoned in the building, a ladder, they leave one of their own behind in the control cabin to open the door and let them out of the building, They lock Officer Smith in a closet on his way out, the six fugitives completely storm the room. of riot gear wearing helmets to further conceal their identities, placed the television on a stretcher, threw a blanket over it and left the building one, four months before the breakout, the inmates leaked a story about a bomb being built in Module C, so when James Briley warns the officer in charge of the van if they have an active explosive device and it could explode, the terrified officer completely believes him.

Linwood Briley sprays his fake bomb with a fire extinguisher and it appears to be smoking from the exhaust. less than two hours to execute and now six ruthless killers roam free more than three hours have passed since Virginia prison officials were awakened by terrifying news six death row inmates have escaped from the Mecklenburg Correctional Center, the last facility escape-proof generation that all the police have. The search is expanding and there are no leads. James Letner reports that none of the guards conspired in the escape. They are only guilty of errors of judgment. Each era alone would not have been enough, but together they allowed six condemned men to escape the most pressing issue.

In the cards, the mind is where the assassins turn to each other. The six fugitives have been convicted of killing 17 people. They have been in and out of prison most of their lives and are now free men. Warren County Sheriff's Officer Lawrence Harrison, North Carolina. The department patrolling far away from the search perimeter of the Virginia authorities noticed a white prison van at the time I thought only correctional people could move because they do it at night, they came to me and I waited for them and followed Go ahead, the prisoners have breached the perimeter and Officer Harrison has not yet been informed of the escape.

The escapees realize that a white prisoner would be easily discovered. When their elation over the escape wears off, they start arguing about where they should go, what they should do with the van, someone suggests. They hide the truck in the woods and cover it with branches, but that would take time, and the six get nervous as they drive through Warrenton, North Carolina, the town of about 1,000 people, they find a grove of trees. Seems like a good place to leave the van. The fugitives split up. Briley's Tuggle and Jones go in one direction, Banana and Peterson go in another.

The men are lucky to find some sports clothes hanging outside on a clothesline. They get rid of their uniform. prison as police continue to search the perimeter around the prison where inmates are held. Free south of their search area, the fugitives have been on the run for three and a half hours when a North Carolina Highway Patrol officer spots prison van 211 Central. I stop to check out a suspicious van in the school yard. It's 30. Miles from Mecklenburg they had driven it into some trees behind the Marion Boyd Elementary School park, near the playground, the truck does not go unnoticed.

Warrant officers and police from the Sheriff's Department approached the jail van. Researchers find here the mutiny that the prisoners used to disguise themselves. with the television they passed it off as a bomb unfortunately they can't find anything to indicate in which direction the fugitives are heading the riot team can provide it the sleuths are sent they think we could have a break in the prison letter receives the news that a nurse from the hospital had been kidnapped at knifepoint by two uniformed men Lattner suspects that these were two of the fugitives the orderly is lucky to have escaped alive when investigators examine his car and find in the back seat a prison handle similar to those used in the escape the police know the men are now separated and two of them are on foot the Virginia State Police prison emergency crews in the North Carolina Highway Patrol take control of a motel and establish a command post because the fugitives have crossed state lines the FBI is called special agent James Trotter wakes up in the middle of the night the phone rang and my wife answered she handed me the phone it was Wayne Waddell an agent in Danville , Virginia, which covered Mecklenburg Prison.

Wayne said something like Jimmy, I have a problem, we have a problem. Six guys have escaped from death row here. The fact that the fugitives were separated would make it more difficult to find them, but if they were on foot they wouldn't be able to get very far. Investigators adjust their search perimeter by vectoring the location andthe time the van was abandoned. the location and timing of the carjacking attempt, it's just a matter of connecting the dots one from point A to point B and seeing how far they are from you and trying to outwit and overtake them to the next place they are likely to go. and be there waiting for him, representatives from several police agencies meet to establish a task force to coordinate the search.

This is Robert Pence, special agent in charge of the FBI's Charlotte office. Because of the magnitude of this incident, the law enforcement response, I would say, was massive, we had every FBI agent in the eastern part of the state along with support that we sent from headquarters in Charlotte. We used planes, we used dogs, we used correctional officers, in other words, it was a door-to-door search. a field type search and while all this was happening communications were being sent to expand the search to prepare the rest of the sector in the rest of the country to be aware of these people and be alert for them the special agents need more information on the names and addresses of their closest relatives records of telephone calls they have made the identities of the people with whom they were authorized to communicate what we did simultaneously was search records to try to identify associates, relatives, neighbors, anyone whom these individuals may have attempted contact if they left the Warrington area the police set up a tip line fence send officers to interview the fugitives' friends and family not only to gather information but to warn them that the killers are on the loose, we believed they were still in the area I want That is to say, we had no indication that they had left, so the perimeter remained narrow and we continued looking for them, but thoughts or feelings invade you that perhaps they did escape, so what the police fear most happens is that a man reports that His truck was stolen.

The five-year-old Ford Ranger was serviced the day before and within moments it is full of gas. Department of Corrections officials, Highway Patrol sheriff's deputies and local police swarm the property looking for any clues that may have been left behind the man. tells investigators his truck would be easy to identify has personalized license tags with the letters P ei1 police order an all-points bulletin for the truck investigators can't be sure if all the killers had fled in the truck or if some were left behind lurking in the back yards of the Warrington special constables pens, so initially it was to try to contain them and then it became a national search, so while all this was going on, While the physical search was carried out, communications would be sent to inform the rest of the country. about what happened here, that we had the largest escape of death row inmates in American history and we needed to stop them very quickly.

The new perimeter has just been destroyed now that the fugitives have a vehicle. The search area extends for hundreds of miles to the east. Coast at dawn the day after the escape police establish a fortified perimeter around Warrington North Carolina roadblocks are set up and each driver is questioned search teams are organized all available law enforcement officers are recruited police bring in tracking dogs to follow the scent of the fugitives starting in In the area immediately around the van, a search for patterns opens up like ripples in a pond, covering an ever-widening area requiring more and more manpower.

Police comb the forest and search outbuildings anywhere fugitives might hide. After several hours of searching, investigators only know the fugitives. Some of them may have stolen a truck, but police were no closer to finding them than when they started this morning, residents of Warrenton, North Carolina, woke up to see helicopter shots of their city on the national news in prison officials' attempt to answer questions from a frightened public in At this time, our primary concern is the recapture of inmates who were free at the time and we are cooperating with the North Carolina FBI and other authorities in an effort to achieve this.

Fred Patton District First Sergeant in the North The Carolina Highway Patrol could almost map it out as a fog bank as the fair moved through the four counties from the court order outwards and as the sightings increased, people became more scared due to the fact that there were six people in the fog who had killed 17 people. They murdered them, including a five-year-old child, and among their rapes was a 76-year-old woman, they began to arm themselves. Warrenton residents rushed to buy guns and ammunition. Citizens are terrified to learn that six desperate killers are loose in their community.

Tony Jaron's motto: There was a lot of tension, a lot of fear. I remember people talking saying they had their guns and you know if anyone approached them they would shoot and talk to some of the merchants in this small town, apparently they were cleaned out. Residents barricade themselves in their homes, where fugitives have disguised themselves as guards, distrust police officers and open their doors with weapons in hand. Special Agent Robert Pence and we had a lot of fear in the Warrenton neighborhood where they were supposedly or possibly still contained, people were extremely scared and scared and people were going door to door making announcements to close your doors, close your cars, many people did not sleep there for a long time.

On a few nights, three hundred sheriff's deputies, state troopers, and Highway Patrol officers join the search in hopes of easing the public's fears. Warren County Sheriff's Deputy Lawrence Harrison, at the time with the deputies, the few we hate, made deliveries for the old ladies who were called up. the grocery store for us to pick it up and carry a code that was too long. They were afraid to go out through the median to get information about the investigation. Well, there were some that confirmed some of them when someone confirmed at this time. We have two confirmed by the eager public.

You want to know where the fugitives could be, right? It is easier to move around and not be detected after dark. Earl Clanton and Derek Peterson swapped the guards' uniforms for some sports gear. Plantin kept his guards' jacket, but tore off the patches that the two fugitives walk on. a coin-operated laundromat after spending a sleepless night running they are hungry and thirsty they just went to a convenience store where they bought a bottle of wine and some cheese the commander of the prison or pert emergency team drives along to the laundry he sees a man wearing a coat, the coat is the same uncut color as the uniform of the Mecklenburg guards.

He is sure that he is one of the escaped inmates. The officer decides to arrest him before he can leave the laundromat. He hopes to take you by surprise. Clanton. and Peterson were out of prison for no more than 19 hours, they didn't get very far and now their freedom is over. The two men admit that they hoped they would be caught because they were lost. Turns out it was a convenient place to be arrested. The laundromat operated is just a half block from the county jail. They found two of them there and thought maybe the rest would be there, so if we were afraid before when the van was discovered, we were a tremendous amount of fear every time two of them were there.

He was arrested right in the city, so during those first two or three days the atmosphere was very serious and people were very worried, very scared, we knew that at that moment it was going to be a complicated search because not everyone was taking care of each other. others. and they weren't together and maybe two of them were a little bit warmer on this escape and now we had to find the ones who actually intended to follow the route and where they were going investigators debate the possible whereabouts of the other four. Special Agent Trotter's fugitives the Briley brothers are at the top of his list the Briley brothers killed repeatedly for no apparent reason they killed women they killed pregnant women they killed small children they killed grown men and they killed in very brutal and gruesome ways and apparently No They had absolutely no remorse for any of the crimes they were convicted of.

Trotter fears that, unlike Peterson and Clanton, the Briley brothers will not give up without a fight. Police are today in a desperate race against time to find four killers they fear could kill. Once again, the capture of two fugitives in the town of Warrenton, North Carolina, only intensifies the sense of fear in the region on the second day of the search. Police sweep a North Carolina camp after a woman reported she saw two of the convicts running through an officers' field. spread out through the forest, emerging hours later with nothing more than a cold trail. Sightings of escaped death row inmates are coming in from all over North Carolina and Virginia.

Every call must be reviewed. Fred District First Sergeant in the North Carolina Highway Patrol, it was like When the dam broke, first there was a trickle and then there was a little fluctuation of calls that we would get as far as sightings and then the dam broke and the sightings were coming in by the hundreds and of course by that time I had mobilized enough people and spread it out to the point where we were able to respond to the sightings in a short period of time and this is what we wanted to do. Investigators suspect the fugitives may have left the area, but cannot be sure the chase is over. continues in and around Warrington but these guys are very smart, they obviously know what they are doing and could be dug up anywhere and they had to turn every limb and their retreat helicopters searched the dense forests and red dirt fields in Carolina of the North, Virginia.

Border police patrol the waterways in abandoned houses and stop traffic on all roads and highways in search of dangerous men. Police continue to receive tips. Special Agent Robert Pence. Many of those leads were worse. Tips for care. They were advice for fear. They weren't helping much. and I don't think any of the calls really materialized in terms of giving us directions as to where these fugitives might be, but I do think it gave citizens an outlet to really vent some of their fears and concerns about a search raid. the woods and swamps search all day and become more miserable with each passing hour they run out of bug spray in Warrenton and have to send four more officers endured difficult conditions all in vain Officer Lawrence Harrison responds to several sightings of the fugitives yes bad in the ocaña high seen once we got there and I don't know how many hounds we didn't have here they said I saw him run down the road in him we took the blue hands down there it turns out nothing and and They said I saw him run, then we took the hounds there and sometimes we handled them right, we saw some guys running across the street, but it wasn't a private brother coming from the Lucas T on marijuana reports coming in as they come.

Virginia residents in North Carolina called police hotlines and claimed to have seen the fugitives. The governor of Virginia offers a reward of forty thousand dollars for information leading to the capture of the fugitives. Sightings come from North Carolina and Virginia. Every call needs to be reviewed but it leads nowhere. thinking that Briley might return to his old Richmond neighborhood Virginia police interview his acquaintances and former gang members Special Agent James Trotter these guys just killed to see people die just for the sake of killing and I think that's why the Richmond community at finding out that they had escaped particularly In the areas of Richmond that they frequented in the past people were terrified, their own parents were terrified not of them but of them.

In Portsmouth, Virginia, just a few hours' drive from Warrington, the police officer sees two men breaking into a car when he tries to stop it. Then the two men opened fire on what our officers saw Linwood Briley in the 1800 block of Elm Avenue but then lost sight of him and probably before nine o'clock another officer saw Linwood Briley and James Briley here on Elm and Lincoln apparently were tampering or They appeared to be tampering with a car in this area as soon as they saw the officers, they fled as fears spread. The sightings continue to come in from everywhere.

If the fugitives stole a pickup truck, they could be anywhere the missing vehicle had enough fuel toI passed through Richmond with a feeling that the fugitives might head north. Agents began interviewing employees at a gas station just north of Virginia's capital. One employee remembers seeing a van with a white memory stick and three black men. Investigator Jim Letten was absolutely convinced that at least two of them. and perhaps four of them were capable of committing murder or some other crime and would eventually commit other murders if they remained on the street having lost their perimeter. Investigators are scrambling for clues about where the fugitives might be headed.

They focus their attention on the leaders of the group. gang, they begin by examining a log of phone calls made from death row, the log indicates that the Briley brothers made several calls to the Philadelphia area, the log entries lead the agents to one incorrect address after another, they become suspicious that the Brileys entered false phone numbers. Michael Carbonell is a supervisory special agent with the FBI in Philadelphia, based on all the negative investigation we had done. I felt that those numbers were not correct; In other words, they weren't telling the guard what number they were calling.

Investigators cited corresponding toll records. to the death row phone when they compared it to the handwritten log their suspicions are confirmed the phone company records show the real numbers the Briley call agents now have over 50 good numbers to investigate two of the calls were Philadelphia investigators know from prison visitation records that the Brileys have an uncle who lives in North Philadelphia. Carbonelle is prepared to track his uncle's outgoing calls. I didn't think the Briley brothers would stay with him and I didn't want to hit his house until we were absolutely sure they were here, time was on our side at that point so we decided to put a stake in his residence and carried out that Surveillance for probably four or five days, the FBI watches Briley's uncles' every move.

Although he is never seen with the Brileys, the agents have no choice but to wait while the FBI follows all the leads on the escapees from Mecklenburg Death Row. They get another opportunity hundreds of miles from Virginia. It took LEM Tuggle and Willie Jones 8 days to achieve it. On the way to Woodford Vermont, a small tourist town just south of the Canadian border, the men had spent the night in the woods, they decide to try to reach Canada, the two fugitives have a problem, their stolen truck is low on gas and they need money . Tuggle leaves Jones and drives back to a souvenir shop he had visited three days before Nyko waited for the right moment to make the move on him.

Tuggle asks the owner for a soft drink and there will be something else for you, sir, yes, he pulls out a hunting knife and demands everything. the money in the cash register once Tuggle receives the money he turns around and walks out the woman notices the license tag of the truck I won it's easy to remember the win is about $80 and the change isn't much , but it's enough for gas and a new start in Canada Unfortunately for Tuggle he's going in the wrong direction Ronald Wonderlic has just woken up and is about to work all night guarding a nuclear power plant when he hears the news of a robbery at the gift shop of Woodford.

Wonderlic is a police officer in a town of only 300 people, his Ford Escort also doubles as his patrol car in Stanford, Vermont. It seems unlikely that he will have to engage in high-speed chases, Private Daniel begins. Also here is the report that the dispatcher says the suspect. was last seen driving east on Route 9 and dispatch reported that upon performing a registration check on the motor vehicle they had discovered it was a stolen vehicle suspected of being involved with fugitives from the Mecklenburg area and began speeding to intercept the vehicle Wonderlic is driving. Stanford, when he sees the suspect vehicle coming from the wrong side of the road, the officer U-turns his Ford Escort and begins a chase, author Joe Jackson.

The most a city officer had ever done before was get drunks off the street. street and see reports of stolen bikes and suddenly I was chasing this crazy man who had robbed a store at knifepoint Wonderlic radios started saying that the truck is now heading south towards the state of Massachusetts, a big cop even goes from a code two to a code 3 response using your lights inside. I was speeding around probably 80 or 90 miles per hour to try to catch up with them and make up some time in the distance before I got north to the intersection of 108 if they act quickly. is able to set up a roadblock before the convict has a chance to escape by radio, but since other officers are joining the chase, Wonderlic informs him that the vehicle has turned around and is heading north on Rt. 100, the cop and the fugitive are now.

Heading directly towards each other at the time I was trying to find a good location to execute a stop where there were no residences around where we could have some relative safety and at the same time have as much field of view of the world as we could. See the truck coming, the officers now realize they are chasing a convicted murderer when Begay crosses the road with his vehicle and knows he is risking his life in a high-stakes challenge game. There is a small element of danger involved. , but it's still something that, being a rural patrol officer, you rarely see and you're like saying oh no to yourself.

You know what I've been involved in from the beginning is betting on who the suspect is. Whether he's not desperate enough to ram your patrol car or you have a good enough shot to stop him before he does, a Vermont state trooper has locked up one of the death row escapees, now it's a matter of whether LEM Tuttle, who had been convicted of Killing two people would be squeamish about killing a third. Weigh his options. Tuggle stops and stops. Then I ordered him to put his hands out the window so I could see his hands and then we ordered him to get out of the truck and lie down on the pavement. then he approached him and stopped him, he identified himself to me, since you know my name is Lam and I'm from Virginia and something like that I hope you find out that they are looking for me.

Lim Tuggle has been a fugitive. For just 10 days he seems almost relieved to have been captured. Tuggle admits that robbing the gift shop was a big mistake but the truck ran out of gas and he wanted to get to Canada. The next day he receives an unusual call to the Vermont State Police and gives his name to the operator says the police are looking for him where did he escape from prison I can't mecklenburg mecklenburg we are in virginia problem he had escaped from death row for how long and you won't turn yourself in I'll send the patrol car to the police to talk to you when Tuggle doesn't come back Jones got lost and confused tired of being on the run he wanted to turn himself in the dispatcher asks Jones to describe where he is she determines he's in La Route 242 on the outskirts of town Jay Jones tells the dispatcher that he is unarmed in his 26 years as a police officer.

This is the only time Richard Armitage received a fugitive call and asked to be picked up. He looked like he was ready to turn himself in. Annie, he looked miserable, he looked tired, dirty and hungry and it was obvious that he had been bitten by several of the black flies that we have in this area and it was really like the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. he was so glad he went where he could get something to eat and something to drink, it wouldn't have been difficult for Jones to enter Canada in Vermont, the border is only patrolled on the roads, if he knew where he was going he could just walk across, but Jones turned himself in just five miles from the Canadian border.

Author Joe Jackson believes Jones may have been overwhelmed by his newfound freedom. He lives most of his adult life in prison. I mean, prison is his world and that's why they are there. They are capable of discovering how the prison world acts but they do not They are not capable of discovering how the free world acts They fit into the prison world They do not fit into the free world with four of the six fugitives captured only The Brileys, the most dangerous murderers, They remain at large with their well-known history of cruel murders. The two remaining fugitives seem to be everywhere.

Sightings come from as far north as Montreal, in Richmond, Virginia, where the brothers went on their bloody rampage. Everyone closes their doors. A manhunt is staged in Oxford, North Carolina, after a man believed to be Linwood Briley steals some cans of food from a convenience store in Richmond, Virginia, the family of a former gang member who came forward with evidence against the Briley receives police protection while investigators question LEM Tuggle. Searching for clues to the Brileys' whereabouts, Tuggle tells the police how the fugitives wandered around the warrant and, looking for a vehicle they could steal, hooked up a pickup truck and drove off.

Tuggle tells them that the Brileys have never been to Portsmouth or Richmond and he says they have. They didn't kill anyone while he was with them after stealing the van in North Carolina that they drove north to Philadelphia, they burned the guards' uniforms in a trash can according to Toggle. The Brileys claimed they arranged for someone to meet them with clothes and a gun. He remembers James Briley taping one of the guards' badges to a tree in Philadelphia's Huntington Park. He and Jones then headed north toward the Canadian border. Tuggle claims they even stopped and asked two state troopers for directions to the New Jersey Turnpike.

There they were driving two escaped convicts from a maximum security prison wanted by the FBI and law enforcement agencies in several states, but apparently no one noticed. Tuggle says he and Jones eventually got separated from the camp when he left to rob the gift shop. Special Agent Mike Carbonell arrives in Philadelphia with a map of the park drawn by Tuggle I frankly didn't believe it I'm familiar with Honey Park when I looked at the map there were no tennis courts drawn on the map I was skeptical I felt why a guy who's in the hallway of death who is going to be executed cooperate with us searching the trees investigators find the guards badge this confirms Tuggle's story I was, I was stunned, I didn't believe it, but the proof is in the pudding, the badge was there and then we learned that they If they were here, the FBI knows that the Brileys have an uncle in Philadelphia.

They believe the two fugitives will likely contact him if they haven't already. Special Agent James Trotter, they set up surveillance and stayed there for days. Nothing, he would call me to inform. He would say that the kids don't do anything, no one comes or goes, the agents get a break when they follow the guy to a body shop specializing in upholstery and vinyl roofs for cars. Days earlier, a woman in New York notified police that she received a call from James Briley and that the call originated. From this garage, his uncle, Dan Latham, had introduced the Brileys through his uncle using false names, called them lucky and thin, the FBI sets up a fixed surveillance and the Lathan garage agent sees several men hanging around, but he's not sure if they're the smartest ones, they sent a neighborhood informant to try to confirm an ID.

He was a street guy, he was very smart and could really maneuver himself in that environment. We sent it there. In fact, he talked to James Briley. She came back and reunited. with us said I think it's him, a tattoo on the suspect's left arm further confirms that ID officers believe they have found James but see no sign of his brother Linnea and are wondering whether to go in and arrest one or wait with the hope of achieving it. both, but if they wait, Virginia's most notorious serial killers could escape after a 19-day search. The FBI believes it has located the last two escapees from Mecklenburg Death Row.

They have taken refuge in a body shop in North Philadelphia. The two fugitives appear to be having a piece after having confirmed their identities through an informant, agents decided that the owner of the stab removal shop, Dan Lazin, is surprised by all the commotion. I myself was in the office talking on the phone, just taking it easy and I heard some wheels screeching and stopping and I heard a lot of screaming I looked outside all I saw were guns a lot of guns both brothers admit their identities and are taken away in handcuffs the Nationwide manhunt over last of Mecklenberg six recaptured They had been free for 19 days For Sergeant Fred Patton, it was the end of a nightmareWhen the Briley brothers were finally arrested in Philadelphia, it was like the weight of the world had been lifted off your shoulders because again, they were bad people, they were murderers, the Briley brothers are facing death. sentences in Virginia were picked up at a car shop on the North Side of Philadelphia FBI Agent John Hogan says they were shocked when 20 agents surrounded them They were taken into custody without incident They didn't cause us any problems Both have admitted their identity They have the appropriate scars and marks so we know who they are The Briley brothers were the last of the six convicts to be detained after their escape and the largest death row prison break in US history which was three weeks ago at the Mecklenburg Correctional Facility in Virginia, the Brileys will be arraigned in Philadelphia today, charged with illegal flight to avoid confinement, the FBI wants to make sure Briley can't escape again, Special Agent Trotter manages to keep them into federal custody and these illegal flying cases usually, as soon as you catch them, you dismiss the case. federal orders and leave it between the two states to work on getting them back where they belong, the FBI is out of this, but we were able to keep these guys in federal custody long enough to get them back to Virginia through the federal system instead of having to go through a state extradition process after the escape Mecklenburgh is closed Virginia's governor announces the firing of five guards the director and his security assistant are suspended without pay an investigation by three independent consultants concludes that conditions in Mecklenburg are highly dangerous and sometimes unmanageable two months after the escape riots broke out in the prison using homemade knives the inmates stabbed two guards and took six others hostage author Joe Jackson much violence in the prison before the escape, but once the escape occurred escape that was like a symbol to many of the other prisoners and at that moment the Mecklenburg cover was blown off and there was a huge riot, it seems to be a repeat of previous events only this time there was no escape, the confrontation ends shortly after dawn.

Warden Robert Landon Resigns Three Months Before Leaving Landon Implements Many Changes Guards' bathroom doors are now locked at all times Open stairwells where inmates can hide or wall themselves off Stricter procedures are implemented A device is installed security at the Sallyport main entrance prevented both doors from opening at the same time with these changes implemented. Jim Letten er believes such an escape could never happen again. Corrections were made in our institutions both in the way work was done and in the new regulations that were instituted. makes our prisons easier to escape free in the future in October 1984 when Linwood Briley as his execution approaches he is quoted as saying at least I had my 19 days Briley is the second man in 22 years to be executed in Virginia, but in the After the escape, officials increase the pace of executions six months after Linwood was executed.

James Briley follows his brother to the electric chair that same month Earl Clanton Jr. pays the price for the two murders committed by Derek Peterson, one of the first fugitives to be recaptured, takes his last walk in 1991 Willie Jones is executed in 1993 Willie Turner planned the escape but stayed because he had a pending appeal, convinced of his innocence, puts his faith in the system Willie Turner is executed in 1995 when the state of Virginia stopped using the electric chair Turner's life ends with a lethal injection one hour after the poison stops Turner's heart his lawyer finds a gun inside him homemade .32 caliber loaded typewriter in his cell along with the gun there is a handwritten note that says simply smile the last fugitive to die is LEM Tuggle December 12, 1996 the convicted double murderer is led to the chamber of the death Joe Jarrett in whose book the death started the escape had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment for all the conspirators he is the only survivor the escape of the Mecklenberg six shocked and terrified the nation for nineteen days the coordinated efforts of the police and Law enforcement officials had the men face the maximum penalty for their crimes since The breakout from the Commonwealth of Virginia has executed more than 80 people.

State-sanctioned execution remains a topic of heated debate in Virginia, the United States, and around the world.