news

November 15, 2005
Murderers escape; budget cuts left prison tower unmanned

By William Petroski
Register Staff Writer

Fort Madison, IA. - Two convicted murderers escaped from the Iowa State Penitentiary at Fort Madison Monday night by climbing over a stone wall where a guard tower was unmanned because of state budget cuts, a state lawmaker said today.

State Sen. Eugene Fraise, a Fort Madison Democrat, said he had previously argued against removing armed correctional officers from the guard towers, but prison officials contended they weren't needed when no one was in the prison yard.

"Well, right here it is. We told you so," Fraise said. He said the two inmates, who are considered dangerous, reportedly used a rope with a grappling hook to scale the tall limestone walls, which surround Fort Madison's maximum-security unit.

The escape occurred on the west side of the prison, which is only about a block from U.S. Highway 61 and near a bridge on the Mississippi River, which crosses into Illinois, Fraise said. Fort Madison is also only a short distance from the Missouri border.

The missing inmates, who remained at large today, are Martin Shane Moon, 34, and Robert Joseph Legendre, 27, who were last seen at 7 p.m. Monday at the prison. They had been working inside the penitentiary walls for Iowa Prison Industries when the escape occurred, said Ron Welder, a prison spokesman.

Iowa Department of Corrections officials were in meetings Tuesday morning and were unavailable for comment. Aides to Gov. Tom Vilsack also weren't available.

State Rep. Lance Horbach, a Tama Republican who chairs a prison budget subcommittee, said today he had been told by prison officials that at least one of the nine guard towers had been manned at the Fort Madison prison when the escape occurred. The general inmate population was not in the yard when the escape occurred, he said.

State lawmakers agreed three years ago to reduce staffing of prison guard towers in Iowa's prison system, but they directed prison officials to keep armed officers in the towers when there was activity in the prison yard, Horbach said.

"If there is something that we have to review, it is the oversight or the security that is provided during these extracurricular types of work details," Horbach said. Key legislators believe the Department of Corrections needs a heightened security level until they know exactly how the escape occurred and until procedures are in place to prevent a similar incident, he added.

Moon was imprisoned in July 2000 and is serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of Kevin Dickson in Clarke County. Moon was living near Lorimor when Dickson disappeared. Authorities discovered Dickson's remains on April 26, 1999, and an autopsy showed he had been shot to death.

BACK TO NEWS PAGE