Manhunt underway for two escaped inmates
Pair allegedly exited bus, killed 2 guards
EATONTON, Ga. — A sheriff said officers were “desperately” searching Tuesday for two inmates who somehow got through a gate inside a prison bus, killed two guards and got away.
“My biggest worry is they’re going to kill somebody else,” Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said.
The two men overpowered and disarmed the guards around 6:45 a.m. as 33 inmates were being driven between prisons, Sills told reporters. One of them fatally shot both guards, and then they jumped out of the bus and carjacked a driver who happened to pull up behind them on a rural highway, Sills said.
“We are still desperately looking for these two individuals. They are armed with 9 mm pistols that were taken from these correctional officers. They are dangerous beyond description. If anyone sees them or comes into contact, they need to call 911 immediately,” the sheriff said.
Multiple agencies have contributed to a reward of $60,000 for information leading to the arrests of the two inmates, Georgia Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Nelly Miles said.
The fugitives — Donnie Russell Rowe, serving life without parole, and Ricky Dubose, who has elaborate tattoos on his face and neck — were last seen getting into a “grass green,” four-door 2004 Honda Civic with the Georgia license plate number RBJ-6601, and driving west on state Highway 16 toward Eatonton, southeast of Atlanta.
Sills said the two inmates got a head start by taking and tossing the Honda driver’s cellphone and leaving the other 31 prisoners locked inside the bus. He predicted they would break into a house to change out of their prison clothes, and try to switch cars to throw pursuers off their trial.
The slain guards were identified as Christopher Monica and Curtis Billue, both transfer sergeants at Baldwin State Prison. Monica had been with the Georgia Department of Corrections since October 2009 and Billue since July 2007.
How the two inmates managed to reach and overpower the guards remains under investigation, Sills said.
“They were inside the caged area of the bus,” he said. “How they got through the locks and things up to that area I do not know.”
Protocol is to have two armed corrections officers on the bus, but the officers don’t wear bullet-proof vests during transfers, Corrections Commissioner Greg Dozier said.
“We lost two of our fellow officers, two of our kin. We see our officers as our family,” Dozier said.