ARKANSAS JOURNAL - DAY AFTER DAY - Government - http://maxpages.com/darkevilworld/Arkansas_Journal_Jan

January 2000

JANUARY 14, 2000

PRISON FIRES TWO GUARDS OVER ESCAPE
CATHY FRYE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
This article is published here unedited and without permission of the author

VARNER -- Two correctional officers were fired early this week because they didn't follow policies that would have kept murderer Kenneth Williams from sneaking out of the Cummins Unit in October, prison officials said Thursday. And two other officers have been put on a year's probation because they didn't tell their supervisors that someone had called the unit at 3 p.m. on the day of Williams' escape to report that the killer had been seen in Pine Bluff. His disappearance wasn't noticed until 6 p.m. during the evening head count.

"If they had been following the established security procedures, this escape should not have taken place," spokesman Dina Tyler said of the officers who were fired.

"Inmates are going to try to escape; we know that. It's our job to stop them. They [the officers] didn't carry out that assignment. It's that simple."

Williams, 20, is charged with capital murder in one of two deaths that occurred during the 24 hours when he was an escapee. He is believed to have fled around 8:30 a.m. on Oct. 3 in a slop tank being towed to the prison's hog lot.

Department of Correction, refusing to identify the two fired officers, said state law doesn't require the agency to make this information public until the former officers have exhausted their appeals.

They have 10 days to make their first appeal. The officers were fired Monday after the department wrapped up its investigation.

"I would imagine that these officers are very remorseful for the events that have happened. The entire department is," Tyler said.

The first, who was in charge of Williams' barracks that morning, was fired mainly for failing to keep track of Williams, Tyler said.

"This officer did not properly log inmates in and out of the barracks and then stayed at that post for hours without realizing one of the inmates wasn't there," she said. "In short, this officer was not properly tracking the movement of the inmates."

Other reasons for the firing included unsatisfactory work performance, inattentiveness on duty, failure to perform or carry out work-related instructions, falsification of statements or information, and willful violation of regulation directives or policy statements.

Tyler said she couldn't elaborate on why or how the officer falsified statements. Asked if this meant the employee had lied about what happened that day or changed any log sheets, Tyler said she couldn't comment and cited the state police investigation and Williams' forthcoming capital murder trial.

The second officer, a sergeant, was stationed at the sally port gate on the day Williams sneaked out. Prison officials say that the sergeant should have inspected any vehicles leaving the prison through that gate and Williams never should have been able to stow away in a hog slop tank.

The officer first should have checked to make sure the tank was hot, Tyler said. When the tanks aren't being towed to the hog lot by tractor, they should be attached by hoses to the steam room so that the contents keep boiling.

This is done to keep anyone from climbing inside. A cool tank would have suggested that something amiss, Tyler said.

The sergeant also should have probed the tank with a rod to make sure no one was inside, especially since the tank being used that day was an older model that lacked a grate across the top, she added.

The same reasons for firing the first officer -- ncluding falsification of statements -- were cited in the sergeant's dismissal, Tyler said.

Two other officers were given written warnings and put on a year's probation Wednesday after prison officials learned that the two hadn't reported what turned out to be a vital phone call on the day of Williams' escape.

"At about 3 p.m. a phone call came into the unit saying that this inmate was at large. They didn't properly follow up on that phone call," Tyler said. "They didn't tell the lieutenant on duty. They apparently talked about it among themselves but didn't report it. It may have been that they assumed there was no truth to it without bothering to check up on it. As a result, we lost some time, about three hours. In an escape three hours counts a bunch."

Williams is accused of shooting a 57-year-old Grady farmer to death shortly after fleeing the Cummins Unit. Authorities say Williams crept down irrigation canals to Cecil Boren's farm, where he shot Boren several times, stole some of his clothes and took off in his truck.

The next day, Williams was arrested in Missouri after a high-speed chase that left an innocent motorist dead. Williams, who was still driving Boren's truck, had several of the farmer's guns, food and other smaller items, police say.

Williams had been at the Cummins Unit less than a month, having just been sentenced to life without parole for the kidnapping and murder of a university cheerleader. He taunted his victim's family after jurors decided not to give him the death penalty.

By Oct. 3 he was out and on the road and allegedly making phone calls on Boren's cell phone to a woman who was a witness in his trial and possibly to one juror.

Boren's relatives didn't want to comment on this week's firings and reprimands at the prison. They said they don't want to say too much before Williams' capital murder trial.

But the neighbor who found Boren's body that Sunday morning was indignant. Kay McLemore, daughter of a former Cummins Unit officer, discovered Boren after his wife came home from church and found that her home appeared to have been broken into and her husband was missing. Boren's body was outside, near where his truck was normally parked.

McLemore said Thursday that the firings were a good decision, but more people should be held accountable for Williams' escape.

If Williams had noticed that some officers were being lax in their duties, then those officers' bosses also should have made this observation, said McLemore, who is a longtime friend and neighbor of the Boren family. Higher-ranking officers also should be punished, she said.

McLemore, whose father once worked at Cummins, lived at the unit as a teen-ager. She always felt safe and until recently never had any qualms about living in Grady, which lies about seven miles northwest of the prison.

"I have family who work at the prison and I would hate for any of them to be fired because of me, but someone has to speak up because people are dying," McLemore said.

"Mrs. Boren is afraid to be out in her yard even in the daytime. I've been here 30 years, and I've never been afraid until now. I have discovered what kind of system it is, how lax it has become."

McLemore also said she finds it strange that Williams didn't bother to stop at any houses he might have passed before reaching the Borens' and no motorists noticed him creeping across open farmland.

She strongly implied that Boren's death result from his discussing with a reporter the problems that the Department of Correction once had with its plasma unit.

Canadian hemophiliacs have long contended that they contracted hepatitis C from tainted plasma taken from Arkansas and Louisiana prisons during the mid-1980s. Boren, who once worked at the Cummins Unit as an assistant warden, referred the reporter to Correction Department Director Larry Norris in the summer of 1999, McLemore said.

"We're not accusing anyone of retaliation," she said. "He was contacted. He referred them to Larry Norris."

But McLemore also implied that Williams was let out on purpose and his selection of Boren's home was no accident.

Denouncing this theory, Tyler said, "The thought of this being a deliberate and planned conspiracy is not only ridiculous, it's absolutely nauseating. Absolutely nauseating."

This article was published on Friday, January 14, 2000

NOTE FROM THE SITE ADMINISTRATOR:

Dina Tyler is right for once; it is absolutely nauseating. And my personal bet is that if the truth ever becomes known it will be that it's also absolutely true. Of course, it may also never be known because I also have a strong hunch that Williams will never make it to trial for the escape and the deaths of Cecil Boren and the unnamed motorist; he'll probably have some sort of fatal "accident" before that day comes.

Dina, I will use this forum to tell you that I don't know how you can bear to look at yourself in the mirror or sleep nights. I know I wouldn't be able to if my job was to try to think up reasonable-sounding lies to try to cover the crimes, negligence and abuses of the atrocity that is your employer!

Here's the question I keep asking myself; are you REALLY that stupid, or are you a dark and evil monster yourself? If you'd care to comment on this question, send it to my e-mail link. I promise to publish it here. - Linda

READ THE WHOLE STORY FROM THE BEGINNING - Arkansas Journal, Oct 3-6, 1999:

JANUARY 21, 2000

WOMAN ASKS FOR FILES IN HUSBAND'S MURDER

The Associated Press State & Local Wire
January 21, 2000
STAR CITY, Ark.

A widow planning a wrongful death lawsuit against the state prison system is seeking a ruling on whether she can have access to state files on the escaped prisoner who allegedly killed her husband.

Attorneys for Floy Gene Boren, widow of Cecil Boren, asked the Lincoln County Circuit Court to determine whether the files regarding Kenneth D. Williams are exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests. Mrs. Boren plans to sue the state Department of Correction.

Williams, 20, broke out of the Cummins Unit prison Oct. 3. Police say he killed Boren, who lived near the prison, and stole his truck, then killed another man in Missouri by slamming the stolen truck into a water-delivery van.

Officials say Williams escaped in a slop tank being hauled from the prison kitchen to the unit's hog farm. Once the tank was outside the gate, Williams climbed out, sneaked along a tree line and eventually made it to the Grady home of Boren, 57, officials say.

Williams, who was convicted in September for capital murder and attempted capital murder, was arrested Oct. 4 in Missouri, driving Boren's truck. Williams also allegedly made telephone calls from Boren's cellular phone the day of the escape.

Little Rock attorneys Charles Banks and Paul Wood are asking for the investigative files of the Arkansas State Police and the Correction Department. An FOI request made Nov. 8 ran into a roadblock when officials in both departments said the files were exempt because of a continuing investigations.

Two prison guards were fired and two others at Cummins were placed on probation Jan. 10 in connection with Williams' escape. The state police investigation also is primarily finished, according to state police Lt. David Rosegrant.

Prosecutor Steve Dalrymple said that although the active investigation was over, the case remains open and the files should be exempt from FOI requests.

"I have an ethical obligation not to disclose anything that would jeopardize the case," Dalrymple said.

READ THE WHOLE STORY FROM THE BEGINNING - Arkansas Journal, Oct 3-6, 1999:

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