Martin Gurule escape death row

During Turkey Day dinner on November 26th, 1998, Gurule and 6 other men on death row hid out in a recreation room. Before they left their cells for the Thanksgiving dinner, the 7 doomed to die inmates placed cushions and sheets in their beds to fool the prison guards. They also colored their prison uniforms darker so that they would be less visible to the eye at night.

After the cells were locked for the night, the group broke through a door to the rec yard and then through a fence. Once inside the main prison yard, they managed to scale to the rooftop of a building and waited until it was pitch black out.

A little after midnight, guards at a post spotted the escapees climbing, they sounded the alarm and began firing bullets. Gurule’s 6 co-escapees gave up, but Gurule didn’t. He was determined to get away with a capital “D.”He then ran 100 feet over a track of land, scaled a barbed-wire fence, ran an additional 70 feet across a clearing, climbed another barbed-wire fence and vanished into the darkness outside the prison boundary. He did all this despite the fact that the prison guards had fired 18 rounds at him.

500 plus officers from nearby towns, cities and counties joined in on the manhunt, which was aided by sniffer dogs, boats and helicopters. Governor George W. Bush even called in the Texas Rangers and declared a $5,000 dollar reward for any information that would lead to Gurule’s capture.

A week later, a couple of fishermen found Gurule’s body in the Trinity River. The autopsy revealed that he had received a severe gunshot wound to the back, which caused him to drown in the river. He died the night of his escape. Gurule’s motive for being in the river was to remove any traces that the sniffer dogs could use to locate him.

Due to this occurrence, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice relocated its death row the following March of 1999 to the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, in West Livingston, Polk County. The Work Capable Program, of which Guruel and 150 other inmates were apart of, was also discontinued. Gurue’s escape from death row was the first successful breakout from Texan death row since Raymond Hamilton was broken out by Bonnie and Clyde in 1934. Continue reading

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