INMATES ESCAPED WHILE PRISON GUARD TOWER WAS UNATTENDED

Budget cuts left the post covered for only certain hours. The 2 men
are still at large.

Two dangerous convicts who escaped from the Iowa State Penitentiary
at Fort Madison on Monday night climbed over a limestone wall where a
guard tower was vacant because of state budget cuts.

The inmates, who remained at large Tuesday night, are Martin Shane
Moon, 34, serving a life sentence for a murder in Clarke County, and
Robert Joseph Legendre, 27, who was serving life for attempted murder
and kidnapping in the state of Nevada.

The two men used an improvised rope and a grappling hook to scale one
of the walls surrounding the prison's maximum-security unit, said
Fred Scaletta, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Corrections.

Residents of Fort Madison, a southeast Iowa community of 11,476
people, were cautious Tuesday. Security was tighter than normal at
local schools, and some homeowners were double-checking their door
locks. Business otherwise continued as usual in the prison town,
where the penitentiary is one of the largest employers.

Shortly after the escape Monday night, a 1995 gold Pontiac Bonneville
with Iowa plates 776 NOW was stolen in Fort Madison. Authorities
believe the fugitives may be traveling in the vehicle, said Jim
Saunders, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

Law officers in Missouri and Illinois have joined the manhunt, along
with the Iowa Department of Corrections, Fort Madison police, the Lee
County Sheriff's Department and other Iowa law enforcement officers.
Alerts were sent Monday night to the Iowa Department of
Transportation's electronic signs on Iowa's highways, Iowa Lottery
machines and the National Crime Information Center, officials said.

Moon was imprisoned in July 2000 and was convicted of first-degree
murder for the death of Kevin Dickson in Clarke County. He had been
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.

Legendre was convicted in Nevada and was transferred to Iowa in
December 2004 in a practice that is common between state prison
systems. Iowa prison officials have swapped inmates with other states
for years, giving convicts an opportunity to serve time in a
different environment where they don't have established enemies, or
sometimes simply to be closer to their family for prison visits.

The escape occurred along the west wall of the prison, which is about
one block from U.S. Highway 61 and about two blocks from a bridge
over the Mississippi River crossing into Illinois. A guard tower is
staffed 24 hours a day in the middle of the west wall, but the two
inmates climbed the wall in the southwest corner, where a guard tower
is staffed only until 3 p.m. daily, Scaletta said.

"It was very difficult for that manned tower to actually see there
because of the lighting. The lighting lights the ground very well,
but it doesn't light the wall very well," Scaletta said.

It's not certain when the two inmates disappeared Monday, Scaletta
said. The two had been part of a prison industries work crew whose
shift ended at 6 p.m. They were supposed to leave as a group for a
short walk to the penitentiary's dining hall for their evening meal.

"We don't know if they were in that group and kind of went a
different direction, or if they were ahead of that group," Scaletta
said. He said the door on the prison industries building was locked,
so they couldn't have stayed behind in the building.

At some point, the two inmates apparently got on top of a building
inside the prison walls, either to avoid surveillance cameras or
because it provided them with the quickest route out, Scaletta said.
Then they scaled the prison wall with the rope, which was handcrafted
using upholstery webbing obtained inside the prison.

The plan to reduce staffing in guard towers at Fort Madison, Anamosa
and Mount Pleasant was included in Gov. Tom Vilsack's budget package
in 2002. The Legislature approved the proposal, which saved $1.5
million annually by eliminating 38 correctional officers' positions
at the three prisons. The action was criticized at the time by state
Sen. Eugene Fraise, a Fort Madison Democrat, who said Tuesday it's
obvious that lawmakers made a mistake.

"Well, right here it is. We told you so," Fraise said. Prison
officials had contended that all nine guard towers at Fort Madison
didn't need to be staffed when there wasn't activity in the prison yard.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees,
which represents prison officers, also protested the plan, contending
it would endanger public safety. Prison officials have since
installed high-tech security equipment to defend against escapes,
which was part of the budget plan.

Darrell Gray, president of AFSCME Local 2995 at the Mount Pleasant
state prison, said Tuesday that lawmakers should restore the money
needed to fully staff the towers at all three prisons.

"There is no more important position in a prison than a tower
officer. Our primary function is to keep the inmates in until the
courts or other proper authorities tell us to let them out," Gray said.

State Rep. Lance Horbach, a Tama Republican who is chairman of an
Iowa House prison budget subcommittee, said he was told Tuesday by
prison officials that the general inmate population was not in the
prison yard during the escape. Lawmakers had directed prison
officials to keep additional armed officers in the towers when there
was activity in the prison yard, he said.

"If there is something that we have to review, it is the oversight or
the security" when small groups of inmates are in the prison yard,
Horbach said.

Horbach also said an investigation should be conducted into why an
electronic barrier on the prison wall failed to alert the
correctional staff of the escape. He said that the current Iowa
prison budget, which totals $211 million, has been increased each of
the past two years.

Vilsack issued a statement Tuesday that said he had spoken earlier to
Fort Madison Mayor John Wright and promised the state's full
resources to manage the investigation. He also said he has ordered
the penitentiary, which has 985 inmates, to remain locked down until
an investigation can ensure the public's safety.

Two years ago, two inmates escaped from the state prison at Oakdale,
just north of Iowa City, by climbing over a pair of fences. Prison
officials acknowledged afterward that alarms on the fences had been
turned off because of construction on a prison expansion project.
Both inmates were later captured in Atlanta, Ga.

Escapes from inside the walls of the Iowa State Penitentiary have
been rare. The Fort Madison facility is the oldest prison west of the
Mississippi River, with its original buildings constructed in 1839
while Iowa was still a territory. The penitentiary houses inmates in
maximum- and medium-security units, and at two nearby state prison farms.