COLUMBUS, Ohio – Weak locks, a security camera knocked out by lightning, a homemade ladder and easy access to roofs, cubbyholes and fences all contributed to a jailbreak in Lima in September during which the Chardon High School shooter, the convicted killer of a Madison Township girl and a third inmate made a short-lived break for freedom.
EXTRA: Security camera video of escape
Those were some of the findings of an investigation by a group of corrections experts called for by Ohio prisons chief Gary Mohr from the Oakwood unit of the Allen Oakwood Correctional Institution.
On the evening of Sept. 11, Thomas Lane III, Lindsey Bruce and Clifford Opperud climbed a ladder to the roof of the facility’s administration building during the evening recreation period, dropped approximately 15 feet from the front of the building and fled through a soybean field north of the prison, according to the summary of the inquiry by the Association of State Correctional Administrators.
Lane pleaded guilty last year to shooting three students in February 2012 at Chardon High School, east of Cleveland. Bruce was convicted in 2007 of the slaying of five-year-old Emily Rimel.
All three were recaptured soon after their escape.
The three inmates were classified as “protective control,” a housing assignment designed for inmates of all security levels who require separation from the general population for their own safety.
They were able to gain access a maintenance area located just inside the entrance of the west wing recreation yard of the Oakwood unit over the course of several months and fashioned a 13½-foot ladder from materials stored there, the report stated.
The investigators recommended the need for a “higher level of management to have increased presence at the Oakwood unit.”
How the inmates were able to get into the small maintenance crawlspace is the subject of wider investigation of the escape and “evaluation of employee conduct” and the summary says “appropriate corrective actions” will be taken after the investigation is concluded.
The door to the maintenance access area was secured with a padlock, which the three were able to unlock. The report says the padlocks have been replaced with higher security locks, the maintenance access area is now properly secured and will be inspected as “an unoccupied space.”
A security camera was found to be inoperable due to a lightning strike and some perimeter lighting was also found to be in need of repair or replacement.
Perimeter security enhancements were already underway, including separating the security perimeter from the Lima Correctional Institution next door to tighten the perimeter around the Oakwood unit.
Immediately following the escape, the Oakwood unit was placed in a modified lockdown and the recreation yard where the escape occurred has been closed.
All high-security inmates have been moved from the Oakwood unit have been transferred to other facilities.