Kenneth Brown
Captain
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2003
- Messages
- 3,481
This is the agency I work for. We have approximately 110 units throughout the state. I didn't know Mrs. Canfield but feel very deeply for her family.
HUNTSVILLE ? Two violent Texas inmates, including one who had to be relocated to another prison recently after allegations he had sexual contact with a nurse, overpowered a 59-year-old correctional officer and fatally ran her down with a stolen truck during a short-lived prison escape Monday, prison officials said.
Matagorda County killer John Ray Falk, 40, and Dallas-area convict Jerry Duane Martin, 37, serving a sentence for attempted murder, were among 76 minimum custody inmates working outside the Wynne Unit around 10:10 a.m. when they fled the six officers watching the group, officials said.
The convicts took two guns from Susan Canfield, a nearly eight-year veteran correctional officer, and a male guard. The two escapees exchanged gunfire with guards and ran to a nearby Huntsville municipal building, where they stole a truck and used it to knock Canfield off her horse.
The horse was hit by the car and she fell, dying instantly from the fall, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said. Canfield's horse had to be euthanized overnight after investigators discovered it had been shot by one of the inmates. A bullet wound, previously undetected, was found under the saddle's girth strap.
The guard's husband, a field training officer at the Houston Police Department's academy, said he was concerned when she joined the TDCJ in 2000.
"I told her she did not want to work as a correctional officer," Chuck Canfield, 51, said Monday.
Falk and Martin dumped the truck at a defunct fast-food restaurant about a mile down Interstate 45 and carjacked a pickup in a nearby bank drive-through, abducting the woman inside, Lyons said. Huntsville police gave chase briefly and disabled the truck by shooting out a tire.
The woman was unharmed, Falk was captured around 11 a.m. and Martin was tracked down by dogs around 1:40 p.m., when searchers found him up a tree in a densely wooded area near the highway.
Falk has been serving a life sentence since 1986, and Martin started his 50-year term in 1997.
Lyons said the two men were allowed to work outside the perimeter "based on clean disciplinary records" inside the system, even if their free-world records were far from it.
But while Martin's record was clean enough for field work, it was not a spotless one.
On July 17, he was relocated to Wynne from the Polunsky Unit in Livingston after it was discovered he engaged in sexual behavior with a licensed vocational nurse at the unit.
"It's a pending investigation," said John Moriarty, TDCJ's inspector general, who added that the nurse no longer works for the prison system. He could not immediately say, when contacted Tuesday, whether charges had been filed against the nurse.
Sexual contact with an inmate is a crime.
However, he did say the nurse was not involved in Martin's and Falk's escape.
"She's no longer employed," Moriarty said. "I don't know if she resigned or what."
As a result of the incident, the prison system revoked 30 days of good time accrued by Martin. Good time is a type of credit inmates earn for good behavior.
Despite the loss of good time, was still approved for field work because the sexual incident was not something that would have been considered by the prison system when determining he was eligible for outside work.
The law puts a sexual crime on the employee who commits it, not on the inmate.
Falk's defense attorney at trial, James T. Garrett, called his former client "an absolute loser."
"I'm surprised they let him in a work program," Garrett said.
'Nothing left to lose'
In March 1986, Falk and accomplice Tommy Wooten were charged with capital murder in the stabbing and drowning death of Donald Owen, an elderly Matagorda County attorney.
According to District Attorney Steven Reis, Falk and Wooten had learned that Owen had come into some money, so they went to his house and borrowed $10. Reis said that, after getting drunk, the two men returned to Owen's home and coaxed him outside by making up a story about some people being on his property.
"Mr. Falk then slammed him in the head with a two-by-four and knocked him down," Reis said. "He then took a knife and stabbed him a couple of times in the throat."
The men threw Owen in the trunk of his own car before they stole it and slashed his throat again, but weren't convinced he was dead even as they made sudden stops to hear if he would moan when he lurched forward.
Reis said Falk and Wooten eventually pushed the car into the Colorado River, with Owen still alive in the trunk.
"(Falk) was a bad man," recalled former Matagorda County District Attorney Daniel Shinder.
Martin was arrested in August 1994 and charged with two counts of attempted murder after shooting at state troopers and Collin County sheriff's deputies near McKinney, a Dallas suburb.
Lt. John Norton, spokesman for the Collin County Sheriff's Department, said two highway patrolmen had gone to Martin's home in response to a domestic disturbance, but Martin fled in his car and started shooting at them.
After a high-speed chase, Martin ended up in a cornfield southwest of McKinney where he continued shooting at the troopers as well as deputies who had come to help negotiate with him.
No one was injured, Norton said, and Martin was talked into surrendering.
"I don't have nothing left to lose," Martin said Monday as he was recorded entering the Walker County jail by a KHOU-TV crew.
The men were well-behaved enough behind bars to earn minimum custody at the 124-year-old Wynne Unit in Huntsville, one of three clustered on the north side of town. Such inmates aren't trusties, but are allowed to perform supervised labor outside the gates.
A committee at the prison examines inmates' records before determining what tasks they can perform. They are required to work if they meet the criteria and are physically able, officials said.
Keith Price, who retired after 30 years with TDCJ and is now an assistant professor of criminal justice and sociology with West Texas A&M University in the Panhandle, said the inmate-to-guard ratio was well under the 30-to-1 that's considered acceptable.
"What a terrible thing, to lose an officer like that," said Price, a former warden at six Texas prisons. "This officer was out there, doing her duty, trying to do the best she can. You've really got to admire her sense of duty. In this particular case, she really put her life on the line. "
Killed while giving chase
According to Lyons, one of the inmates approached a male guard on horseback and asked him to hold a watch. The prisoner grabbed the guard, and Canfield came to assist him.
That's when Falk and Martin bolted for a nearby parking lot outside a city building and started up a work truck, Lyons said. They struck Canfield's horse, which later had to be euthanized, after the officer had given chase. Canfield's pistol was recovered at that scene.
Shortly before 11 a.m., the two ditched the truck and carjacked a woman at a drive-through teller nearby, officials said. They drove south along the I-45 feeder, with the woman still inside, before Huntsville police shot out a tire and the men ran.
After Falk was in custody, bloodhounds and searchers in helicopters concentrated on a large wooded area nearby. The dogs picked up Martin's scent and, nearly three hours later, a shirtless, heavily tattooed Martin was pulled down from his perch.
It was not immediately clear who was driving when Canfield's horse was struck, or if the men fired her rifle, which was recovered. Lyons said escape charges are pending at the very least, although the slaying of a correctional officer is a capital crime in Texas.
Officials also are investigating whether the escape was planned or spontaneous.
The 100 Club said donations are being accepted for its Survivors Fund, which provides benefits to the families of officers killed in the line of duty.
terri.langford and mark.babineck@chron.com
HUNTSVILLE ? Two violent Texas inmates, including one who had to be relocated to another prison recently after allegations he had sexual contact with a nurse, overpowered a 59-year-old correctional officer and fatally ran her down with a stolen truck during a short-lived prison escape Monday, prison officials said.
Matagorda County killer John Ray Falk, 40, and Dallas-area convict Jerry Duane Martin, 37, serving a sentence for attempted murder, were among 76 minimum custody inmates working outside the Wynne Unit around 10:10 a.m. when they fled the six officers watching the group, officials said.
The convicts took two guns from Susan Canfield, a nearly eight-year veteran correctional officer, and a male guard. The two escapees exchanged gunfire with guards and ran to a nearby Huntsville municipal building, where they stole a truck and used it to knock Canfield off her horse.
The horse was hit by the car and she fell, dying instantly from the fall, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said. Canfield's horse had to be euthanized overnight after investigators discovered it had been shot by one of the inmates. A bullet wound, previously undetected, was found under the saddle's girth strap.
The guard's husband, a field training officer at the Houston Police Department's academy, said he was concerned when she joined the TDCJ in 2000.
"I told her she did not want to work as a correctional officer," Chuck Canfield, 51, said Monday.
Falk and Martin dumped the truck at a defunct fast-food restaurant about a mile down Interstate 45 and carjacked a pickup in a nearby bank drive-through, abducting the woman inside, Lyons said. Huntsville police gave chase briefly and disabled the truck by shooting out a tire.
The woman was unharmed, Falk was captured around 11 a.m. and Martin was tracked down by dogs around 1:40 p.m., when searchers found him up a tree in a densely wooded area near the highway.
Falk has been serving a life sentence since 1986, and Martin started his 50-year term in 1997.
Lyons said the two men were allowed to work outside the perimeter "based on clean disciplinary records" inside the system, even if their free-world records were far from it.
But while Martin's record was clean enough for field work, it was not a spotless one.
On July 17, he was relocated to Wynne from the Polunsky Unit in Livingston after it was discovered he engaged in sexual behavior with a licensed vocational nurse at the unit.
"It's a pending investigation," said John Moriarty, TDCJ's inspector general, who added that the nurse no longer works for the prison system. He could not immediately say, when contacted Tuesday, whether charges had been filed against the nurse.
Sexual contact with an inmate is a crime.
However, he did say the nurse was not involved in Martin's and Falk's escape.
"She's no longer employed," Moriarty said. "I don't know if she resigned or what."
As a result of the incident, the prison system revoked 30 days of good time accrued by Martin. Good time is a type of credit inmates earn for good behavior.
Despite the loss of good time, was still approved for field work because the sexual incident was not something that would have been considered by the prison system when determining he was eligible for outside work.
The law puts a sexual crime on the employee who commits it, not on the inmate.
Falk's defense attorney at trial, James T. Garrett, called his former client "an absolute loser."
"I'm surprised they let him in a work program," Garrett said.
'Nothing left to lose'
In March 1986, Falk and accomplice Tommy Wooten were charged with capital murder in the stabbing and drowning death of Donald Owen, an elderly Matagorda County attorney.
According to District Attorney Steven Reis, Falk and Wooten had learned that Owen had come into some money, so they went to his house and borrowed $10. Reis said that, after getting drunk, the two men returned to Owen's home and coaxed him outside by making up a story about some people being on his property.
"Mr. Falk then slammed him in the head with a two-by-four and knocked him down," Reis said. "He then took a knife and stabbed him a couple of times in the throat."
The men threw Owen in the trunk of his own car before they stole it and slashed his throat again, but weren't convinced he was dead even as they made sudden stops to hear if he would moan when he lurched forward.
Reis said Falk and Wooten eventually pushed the car into the Colorado River, with Owen still alive in the trunk.
"(Falk) was a bad man," recalled former Matagorda County District Attorney Daniel Shinder.
Martin was arrested in August 1994 and charged with two counts of attempted murder after shooting at state troopers and Collin County sheriff's deputies near McKinney, a Dallas suburb.
Lt. John Norton, spokesman for the Collin County Sheriff's Department, said two highway patrolmen had gone to Martin's home in response to a domestic disturbance, but Martin fled in his car and started shooting at them.
After a high-speed chase, Martin ended up in a cornfield southwest of McKinney where he continued shooting at the troopers as well as deputies who had come to help negotiate with him.
No one was injured, Norton said, and Martin was talked into surrendering.
"I don't have nothing left to lose," Martin said Monday as he was recorded entering the Walker County jail by a KHOU-TV crew.
The men were well-behaved enough behind bars to earn minimum custody at the 124-year-old Wynne Unit in Huntsville, one of three clustered on the north side of town. Such inmates aren't trusties, but are allowed to perform supervised labor outside the gates.
A committee at the prison examines inmates' records before determining what tasks they can perform. They are required to work if they meet the criteria and are physically able, officials said.
Keith Price, who retired after 30 years with TDCJ and is now an assistant professor of criminal justice and sociology with West Texas A&M University in the Panhandle, said the inmate-to-guard ratio was well under the 30-to-1 that's considered acceptable.
"What a terrible thing, to lose an officer like that," said Price, a former warden at six Texas prisons. "This officer was out there, doing her duty, trying to do the best she can. You've really got to admire her sense of duty. In this particular case, she really put her life on the line. "
Killed while giving chase
According to Lyons, one of the inmates approached a male guard on horseback and asked him to hold a watch. The prisoner grabbed the guard, and Canfield came to assist him.
That's when Falk and Martin bolted for a nearby parking lot outside a city building and started up a work truck, Lyons said. They struck Canfield's horse, which later had to be euthanized, after the officer had given chase. Canfield's pistol was recovered at that scene.
Shortly before 11 a.m., the two ditched the truck and carjacked a woman at a drive-through teller nearby, officials said. They drove south along the I-45 feeder, with the woman still inside, before Huntsville police shot out a tire and the men ran.
After Falk was in custody, bloodhounds and searchers in helicopters concentrated on a large wooded area nearby. The dogs picked up Martin's scent and, nearly three hours later, a shirtless, heavily tattooed Martin was pulled down from his perch.
It was not immediately clear who was driving when Canfield's horse was struck, or if the men fired her rifle, which was recovered. Lyons said escape charges are pending at the very least, although the slaying of a correctional officer is a capital crime in Texas.
Officials also are investigating whether the escape was planned or spontaneous.
The 100 Club said donations are being accepted for its Survivors Fund, which provides benefits to the families of officers killed in the line of duty.
terri.langford and mark.babineck@chron.com