Texas Seven

The Texas 7 was a group of prisoners who escaped from the John Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas on December 13, 2000. They were apprehended January 21-23, 2001 as a direct result of the television show America's Most Wanted.

Members

The group was composed of the following Texas state prisoners:

• Joseph C. Garcia (born in San Antonio, Texas on November 6, 1971, 29 at time of escape)
• Randy Ethan Halprin (born September 13, 1977 in McKinney, Texas, 23 at time of escape)
• Larry James Harper (September 10, 1963 Danville, Illinois - January 22, 2000 Woodland Park, Colorado, 37 at time of escape, 37 at time of death) deceased by suicide
• Patrick Henry Murphy, Jr. (born on October 31, 1961 in Dallas, Texas, 39 at time of escape)
• Donald Keith Newbury (born May 18, 1962 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, 38 at time of escape)
• George Rivas (born May 6, 1970 in El Paso, Texas, 30 at time of escape) - Leader
  • Rivas attended Ysleta High School and the University of Texas at El Paso. Rivas had wanted to become a policeman, but he committed robberies and burglaries instead.
• Michael Anthony Rodriguez (October 29, 1962 San Antonio, Texas - August 14, 2008 Huntsville, Texas, 38 at time of escape, 46 at time of death) executed

Escape

On December 13, 2000, the seven carried out an elaborate scheme and escaped from the John B. Connally Unit, a maximum-security state prison near the South Texas city of Kenedy.

At the time of the breakout, the reported ringleader of the Texas Seven, 30-year-old George Rivas, was serving 18 consecutive 15-to-life sentences. Michael Anthony Rodriguez, 38, was serving a 99-to-life term, while Larry James Harper, 37, Joseph Garcia and Patrick Henry Murphy, Jr., 39, were all serving 50 year sentences. Donald Keith Newbury, the member with the longest rap sheet of the group, was serving a 99-year sentence, and the youngest member, Randy Halprin, 23, was serving a 30-year sentence for injury to a child.

Using several well-planned ploys, the seven convicts overpowered and restrained nine civilian maintenance supervisors, four correctional officers and three uninvolved inmates at approximately 11:20 a.m. The escape occurred during the slowest period of the day when there would be less surveillance of certain locations like the maintenance area — during lunch and at count time. Most of these plans involved one of the offenders calling someone over, while another hit the unsuspecting person on the head from behind. Once the victim was subdued, the offenders would remove some of his clothing, tie him up, gag him and place him in an electrical room behind a locked door.

The attackers stole clothing, credit cards, and identification from their victims. The group also impersonated prison officers on the phone and created false stories to ward off suspicion from authorities.

After that, three of the group made their way to the back gate of the prison, some disguised in stolen civilian clothing. They pretended to be there to install video monitors. One guard at the gatehouse was subdued, and the trio raided the guard tower and stole numerous weapons. Meanwhile, the four offenders who stayed behind made calls to the prison tower guards to distract them. They then stole a prison maintenance pick-up truck, which they drove to the back gate of the prison, picked up their cohorts, and drove away from the prison.

Gary C. King, who wrote a Crime Library article about the seven, stated that some people compared this breakout to the breakout from Alcatraz that took place years earlier.

Crime spree

Aubrey Hawkins, the police officer killed by the Texas Seven

The white prison truck was found in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Kenedy, Texas. The Texas 7 first went into San Antonio right after breaking out of the complex. Realizing that they were running out of funds, they robbed a Radio Shack in Pearland, Texas the next day on December 14.

On December 19, four of the members checked into an Econo Lodge motel in Farmers Branch, Texas (under assumed names). They decided to rob an Oshman's Sporting Goods in nearby Irving, Texas. On December 24, 2000, they held up the store and stole at least 40 guns and sets of ammunition. An off-duty employee standing outside of the store noticed the commotion inside and called police. Irving policeman Aubrey Hawkins responded to the call, arrived on the scene and was almost immediately ambushed; his autopsy would show that he had sustained eleven gunshots and had been run over by the fleeing gang. Hawkins died at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas shortly after his arrival. Officer Hawkins was 29, and had served with the Irving Police Department for 14 months. He previously served with the Tarrant County Hospital District Police Department for 4 years. He left behind a wife and son.

After Officer Hawkins's murder, a $100,000 reward was offered to whoever could snare the group of criminals. The reward would climb to $500,000 before the group was apprehended.

Capture and Conviction

A friend of Wade Holder, the owner of the Coachlight Motel and R.V. Park in Woodland Park, Colorado, happened to watch the television program America's Most Wanted on January 20, 2001 and told Holder that they were staying in his RV Park. He believed that the Texas 7, who were being compared to Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, were in his trailer park. When he confirmed this, he reported the suspicious activities to local authorities the next day on January 21.

The El Paso County Sheriff's Department SWAT team found Garcia, Rodriguez, and Rivas in a Jeep Cherokee in the RV Park. Authorities moved in and captured them at a nearby gas station. They then found Halprin and Harper in an RV; Halprin surrendered peacefully, but Harper was found dead after a standoff; he had shot himself in the chest and left temple with a pistol. The surviving four members were taken into police custody.

On January 23, they received information on the whereabouts of the last two. They were hiding out in a Holiday Inn in Colorado Springs, Colorado. A deal brokered between the two, Newbury and Murphy, allowed them to make live TV appearances before they were arrested. In the early hours of January 24, a local KKTV television anchorman, Eric Singer, was taken into the hotel where on camera he interviewed the two by telephone. Both of them harshly denounced the criminal justice system in Texas, with Newbury adding "the system is as corrupt as we are."

Also on January 23, 2001 Colorado State Trooper Jason Lee Manspeaker died in an automobile accident on I-70 near Loveland Pass while investigating a reported sighting of the getaway vehicle of the Texas Seven. Trooper Manskeaper's Jeep Cherokee patrol vehicle hit a patch of ice and slammed into a flatbed trailer on the left shoulder of I-70. Trooper Manspeaker was 25, and had been with the Colorado State Patrol for 1 year, 6 months. He left behind a wife.

In 2008 authorities indicted Patsy Gomez and Raul Rodriguez, the father of Michael Rodriguez, for conspiring to help the Texas 7.

George Rivas was sentenced to death after being extradited to Texas. Since then, the other five surviving members of the Texas 7 have also been put on death row alongside Rivas.

While the other surviving members of the Texas 7 are awaiting final resolution of their appeals, Rodriguez announced that he wished to forgo any further appeal (beyond the appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, mandatory in all death-penalty cases). He underwent a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation in January 2007, which concluded that he was mentally competent to decide to forgo further appeals, and he was executed on August 14, 2008, the first of the surviving members to be executed.

As of 2010 all of the surviving men are incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), located in West Livingston.

Garcia has the TDCJ number 00999441, Halprin has the TDCJ number 00999453, Murphy has the TDCJ number 00999461, Newbury has the TDCJ number 00999403, and Rivas has the TDCJ number 00999394.

Miscellaneous

In 2007, award-winning film and television production company Wild Dream Films produced The Hunt For The Texas 7, a 90-minute feature documentary about the prison break. The film was aired in late September 2008 on MSNBC. The film features interviews with members of The Texas 7 currently on Death Row, and eye witnesses.

External links

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• Texas Seven Feature at America's Most Wanted
• The Texas 7 Film
• Court TV's complete case file on Texas Seven murder
• The Daring Escape of the Texas 7
• Website of Randy Halprin
  • Website of Randy Halprin (Archive)
• Offender information, Texas Department of Criminal Justice
• Aubrey Hawkins - City of Irving
• "Escapee Gets Death Sentence", New York Times
• "Prison Escapee: I Deserve to Die", CBS News