Texas escapees finally caught

By P. SOLOMON BANDA
The Associated Press

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Cornered in a hotel room, the last two Texas prison escapees surrendered without a fight early yesterday, 42 days after they broke out of a maximum security unit with an arsenal of weapons.

Patrick Murphy Jr., a 39-year-old rapist, and Donald Newbury, a 38-year-old robber, walked bare chested out of the hotel room where they had been holed up after about five hours of negotiations with police and an interview with a TV station.

A hotel employee tipped police to the possibility that the fugitives were at the hotel late Tuesday afternoon, Deputy Police Chief Luis Velez said.

The two were shocked when a detective called their room about 10 p.m. Murphy answered and said: "You got us. I don't know how you guys did it, but you got us," Velez recounted.

Like their captured accomplices, they now face capital murder charges in Texas stemming from the slaying of a police officer during a Christmas Eve robbery near Dallas.

Ten loaded handguns and two loaded shotguns were recovered in the hotel room, FBI agent Mark Mershon said. Also recovered was slain officer Aubrey Hawkins' handgun, authorities said.

The men each had a five-minute telephone interview with Colorado Springs' KKTV before surrendering at 3:45 a.m.

Newbury told anchorman Eric Singer the Dec. 13 breakout was a statement against Texas' judicial system.

"We had a statement to make that the system is as corrupt as we are. You going to do something about us, well, do something about that system, too," Newbury said.

Murphy said he was up for parole when he broke out.

"What forced me to do this was the penal institution and such. The way Texas has things set up ... I'd eventually become an outlaw again anyway because of parole stipulations and such."

"I hope that maybe what we're doing here will open the eyes of people."

In Irving, a police spokesman rejected what he said was an attempt by the escapees to characterize themselves as victims of the criminal justice system.

"I don't see that they were the victims. To quote the chief, Officer Hawkins was the victim. We buried the victim," Officer David Tull.

The inmates promised a peaceful end to the standoff early in the negotiations, and authorities were not surprised they kept that commitment.

"They had their say by telephone and then we had them back out of the room, shirtless, hands in the air, no weapons on them," Mershon said.

Newbury and Murphy were handcuffed and put into separate patrol cars that slowly rolled out of the parking lot of the Holiday Inn. Their four surviving companions were held in a detention center in Teller County about 20 miles away.

The arrests brought to an end a frustrating hunt for the seven convicts who bluffed their way out of the prison in Kenedy, Texas, after stealing 16 firearms and ammunition from a prison storage area.

Four were arrested peacefully Monday at a convenience store and at a motor home in Woodland Park, 20 miles from Colorado Springs. A fifth killed himself in the motor home as authorities closed in.