Linwood Briley sits in his dark cell; the sounds of heavy breathing and muffled sobs fill death
row. Briley rubs his hands together as he thinks. He has been convicted of killing six people
and will be executed unless he can find a way to escape. Suddenly he sits up straight and
smiles. “That's it,” Linwood whispers to himself. "They'll never see it coming." Linwood Briley and
five other murderers are about to escape death row, and nothing can be done to stop them.
The inmate population of the Mecklenburg Correctional Center is made up of some of the most
dangerous criminals in the country. Everyone in the prison is destined to be executed at the hands
of the State for the crimes they’ve committed. When Mecklenburg opened in 1976, it was said to
be inescapable, but Briley and the other inmates are about to put this statement to the test.
The next day as all the inmates gather in the rec room for their hour of free time,
Linwood Briley meets with his brother James. James Briley was sent to death row after being convicted
for seven murders. "I have an idea that I think you're going to like," Linwood tells his brother.
Linwood explains the plan he came up with the previous night. James silently listens. When
his brother finishes, he smiles. "Let's do it," James says. "But we're going to need some help."
Linwood nods. "Leave it to me."
Unknown to the guards at the facility, almost every inmate on the cell block has
been briefed about the plan by Linwood. But before the escape from death row can begin,
the prisoners need to gather more information about the guards and their shortcomings.
The inmates watch the officers at the prison, noting any inconsistencies or flaws
in the security. Several inmates report that the guards have become lax and complacent. It seems as
if they are just going through the motions, with no real concern for what the prisoners are doing.
It is these observations that allow Briley and the others to finalize the specifics of their plan.
In preparation for the prison break, a number of inmates stash blades and pieces of metal
from landscaping equipment into their jumpsuits. Each night they scrape the
metal into shivs so when the time is right, they have weapons to fight the guards with.
The officers at Mecklenburg weren’t searching the inmates or their cells very thoroughly,
so at no point did they find any of the weapons that would have tipped them off
to the inmates' plan to escape death row. This blatant disregard of the rules and regulations
of the facility eventually leads to one of the biggest catastrophes in prison history.
On the evening of May 31, 1983, the prisoners find the opening they have been waiting for.
The inmates return to their cells from their outdoor activities; each one steals a glance
at the guards to see if they are watching. A man by the name of Earl Clanton notices that
the officers aren’t paying attention to him and puts the escape plan into action.
Clanton has been sentenced to death for the murder of a librarian three years prior.
He has no plans of waiting around on Mecklenburg death row any longer.
When no one is looking, Clanton slips into a bathroom that had been left unlocked.
The bathroom sits right next to the control center for the cell block.
If he can gain access to the controls, he can open all of the cells at once, allowing the
inmates to flood out and overwhelm the guards. Clanton lies in wait for the perfect opportunity.
The clock ticks by, Clanton has been hiding for almost an hour. It’s time. James Briley
calls the guard near the control room over to his cell. He asks politely if the guard
minds retrieving a book for him that he accidentally left with another inmate
on the other side of the prison. The guard seemingly has nothing better to do.
He only thinks for a moment before walking away to fetch the book. James Briley smiles
and signals to Clanton, who is peering out of the bathroom door, that it’s go time.
Clanton makes a dash for the control room. The door is unlocked, but there is a guard inside.
When the guard realizes that it is an inmate bursting into the room through the door,
they jump out of their chair and try to subdue the prisoner. But Clanton has gotten the jump
on the unsuspecting guard. He throws them to the ground and pushes all of the buttons
on the control panel. The cell doors swing open; the death row inmates are now free.
The men come running out of their cells and quickly overwhelm the vastly outnumbered guards.
The officers look on in horror as an army of killers swarms around them.
They are not allowed to carry firearms, so all the guards are armed with are nightsticks. They
quickly realize that they are not only outnumbered but outmatched in weapons as well. The inmates
hold shivs in their hands from the sharpened lawn equipment they smuggled back to their cells.
The nightsticks would usually be a deterrent, but the guards have brought sticks to a shiv fight.
Some of the officers have bean bag guns and unload them on the
encroaching inmates. But there are too many. The guards in the cell block are
dragged to the ground and knocked out. Some suffer stab wounds. It’s mayhem.
Eventually, all of the guards are dealt with, and the prisoners now run this section of
the facility. Their calculated escape plan went off without a hitch. They even manage
to subdue the guards before they can radio for help. No one at Mecklenburg
Correctional Center except for the officers guarding death row know that anything has
gone wrong. And things are about to go from bad to worse for the officers at the prison.
The prisoners strip the guards of their uniforms and put them on. They
take their badges, wallets, and identification cards.
The Briley brothers gather everyone together to decide what their next move should be.
They hadn’t expected the plan to go so smoothly, but now that it has, they need a way out.
"There are still a bunch of guards outside of this cellblock," Linwood says.
"We need to lure them in here so we can deal with them."
"I have an idea," one of the inmates says. He grabs a guard's walkie-talkie and radios
the other officers in the facility. "We could use a little help on death row," he
says. "Some of the inmates are getting rowdy." The escaped prisoners snicker.
Officer Hawkins responds to the call and climbs the stairs leading up to the control room. As
he reaches the top of the stairs, Hawkins is greeted by a man in a guard's uniform.
At first, he recognizes the guard but can't quite place how he knows him. Hawkins stops.
His eyes open wide as he turns to run back down the stairs. He realizes that the man in front
of him is not one of his fellow officers but an inmate. Hawkins has stumbled right into a trap.
He leaps down the steps fumbling for his radio. At the bottom James Briley waits for him with
a shiv. “If you try to escape or call for help, it’ll be the last thing you ever do,”
Briley hisses as he holds up the shiv to Hawkins's neck.
Hawkins raises his hands in surrender and is led to the closet where the guards have been secured.
The inmates regroup and radio for more help to be sent to the death row cell block.
They know there are more guards outside of the facility that need to be dealt with,
so if the inmates can lure them in one by one, they will have a better chance of escaping.
Officer Prince Thomas responds to the fake request for help. As he approaches the control room,
Thomas immediately knows something is wrong. The first person he spots is Joe Giarrantano,
who was convicted of murder and sexual assault. Thomas knows how dangerous this
man is and turns to warn the others that the inmates have gotten free.
If he can make it to the exit and let the rest of the guards know that the prisoners are loose,
the whole escape plan will fail—Thomas sprints towards the exit. But James Briley and another
killer named Lem Tuggle catch him from behind. They pull Thomas to the ground.
He reaches his hand out towards the door in desperation, hoping someone will pass by
and see him struggling. But no one comes; the rest of the guards and the outside world remain unaware
that the officers at Mecklenburg Correctional Center are being picked off one by one.
As Thomas is stripped of his uniform and possessions, he watches in horror
as the other guards are being led to the shower room. But one person stands out;
officer Coraleen Epps is the only female guard captured by the inmates.
Many of these men are on death row for crimes against women. Everyone knows
that Coraleen Epps is in significant danger, but there is nothing the other guards can do.
They watch helplessly as Epps is led to another part of the facility by a group of prisoners.
Coraleen screams as she is dragged to one of the cells by a few of the inmates. “I just had a
baby!” she yells. But her pleas fall on deaf ears. Coraleen Epps struggles against the grip of the
men, but they are too strong, and there are too many. She is thrown into a cell. The men stand in
the doorway, arguing what to do with her. Before the inmates can cause her any harm Earl Clanton,
the man who had broken into the control room and started the prison break, throws the others aside.
He stands in front of the cell,
a determined look on his face. “No one goes near her,” Clanton bellows. He pulls out a
shiv and stares down the other prisoners, who slowly back away and rejoin the others.
Clanton turns and looks at Coraleen Epps. In a soft voice, he says, “I am a dad. I wouldn’t let
anything happen to my little girl, and I’m not going to let anyone come in here and hurt you.”
Coraleen watches in astonishment as Earl Clanton turns around, crosses his arms,
and stands in the cell doorway to make sure no one else comes in.
Earl Clanton had made mistakes in his life, but he was not about to let anyone hurt Coraleen Epps.
The Briley brothers gather everyone around in the middle of the cellblock.
"It is time to make moves," says Linwood. "Eventually someone will get word out to the
authorities that we have taken over the prison. If anyone is going to escape, the time is now."
“How are we going to get past the rest of the guards?” someone asks.
There is silence as everyone thinks. Although the inmates have captured
several guards and control most of the prison, this could be the end of their
escape if they can’t figure out a way to get beyond the walls of Mecklenburg.
“Wait,” Linwood says with a smile on his face. “I have an idea.”
He runs to one of the other rooms and grabs a TV from a table. He places it on a gurney.
He throws a sheet over the top of the TV and wheels it back to where everyone is standing.
“We’re going to call in a bomb threat,” Linwood says. The rest of the inmates nod in approval.
Not everyone can make it out due to the lack of guards' uniforms, but several
inmates have already decided to stay behind. Although they didn’t stop the prison break,
they have no intentions of actively participating in it. It is agreed that
six men will escape using the fake bomb as their ticket out and a way to secure transportation.
The Briley brothers, Earl Clanton, Lem Tuggle,
Derrick Peterson, and Willie Leroy Jones, are the inmates who will try to exit death row.
Peterson was convicted of robbery-murder. Jones was sentenced to death for arson and
murdering an elderly couple. All six of these men have done terrible things in the past,
and all six know their best chance to stay alive is by escaping the walls of Mecklenburg.
The six men make sure their stolen guard's uniforms fit correctly. They place the badges
they’ve confiscated in prominent positions so they can be seen. Then the escapees wheel the
cart with the TV on it towards the doorway. The disguised inmates hope that since most
procedures were not being practiced or followed at the prison, the bomb threat will cause enough
chaos to allow them to sneak out. When they reach the door, they radio the guards outside.
“We’ve got a live bomb in the death row cell block!” one of the men screams frantically into
the walkie-talkie. “Open the doors and clear a path so we can get it out of here before it goes
off!” The six inmates wait in silence to see if their plan has worked. Their hearts race;
either they successfully trick the guards, or this will be the end of their escape plan.
Seconds go by, but it seems more like hours. Nothing happens.
It doesn’t seem the other guards at the facility have bought it.
Then there is a buzz. The door unlocks. The prisoners hold back their excitement and signs
of relief. They begin wheeling the fake bomb through the doorway. A few of them have fire
extinguishers that they are spraying at the cart. They are pretending it is keeping the
bomb from detonating. Really the extinguishers are just creating cover to keep their identities
hidden from anyone who is watching the bomb threat unfold over the security cameras.
The prisoners hustle down the hallway, keeping their heads down and periodically
spraying their fire extinguishers. “We need all gates open and a van ready to
take the bomb away from the prison!” one of the escapees yells into the walkie-talkie.
They see the final two gates as they run down the final corridor to the exit. The light
above them is red, indicating the gates remain locked. “Don’t slow down,” someone whispers.
The six inmates disguised as guards speed up their pace as they wheel the fake bomb down the hallway.
They approach the final gates, but the light is still red. They are 20 feet away; then 10,
the gates are still locked. Just before they crash into them, the light goes from red to green. The
gates unlock. The inmates push them open and proceed outside into the cool Virginia night air.
When they look around, they can’t believe what is waiting for them. The guards have
brought a van around. The sliding doors are open so that the bomb can be placed inside and removed
from the prison grounds. The inmates can’t believe their luck. They race over to the van,
load the sheet-covered TV into it, and then pile into the vehicle themselves.
Linwood Briley puts the van in drive and slams down on the accelerator.
The six death row inmates speed away, leaving the maximum-security prison behind.
As the prison fades in the rearview mirror, the six men let out a cheer.
They have done it. They broke out of death row and a facility that was supposed to be escape-proof.
But they are not out of danger yet. At some point soon, the remaining guards at the facility will
realize that they have been tricked. The six inmates know they need to put as much distance
between themselves and the prison as possible if they are going to get away for good. They
also will need to ditch the police van and change their clothes to something much less conspicuous.
Tensions begin to rise in the escape van, and an argument breaks out.
The escaped convicts can’t decide what to do next. “If you don’t like it,
you can get out and go back to prison,” Linwood Briley shouts.
“But my brother and I are heading to Pennsylvania where we’ve got family and can lay low.”
Clanton and Peterson don’t think this is the best course of action. “Pull over,” Clanton says. The
van rolls to a stop in Warrenton, Virginia. The escapees have made it about 20 miles from
Mecklenburg Correctional Center. Clanton and Peterson get out. “Hope we don’t see you again,”
Clanton says to the other inmates still in the van. “You guys should ditch that ride
before word gets out about our escape.” Clanton and Peterson walk down the road towards town.
The Briley brothers, Jones, and Tuggle drive a little further down the road where they find
a schoolyard and abandon the police van. They can’t be sure how long the guards at
the prison remained confused, but it is almost certain that police are looking
for them by this point. The escaped convicts either find new clothes and transportation,
or they will be caught and sent back to death row. The Briley brothers' crew disappears into
the night as they plan their next move for getting out of Virginia and further north.
The sun rises in Warrenton early the next morning. Clanton and Peterson make their
way to a market and buy some cheese and wine using cash from one of the guard's wallets
to celebrate their newfound freedom. They have ripped the badges and insignias off of their
stolen uniforms to make them less noticeable. The two men walk to a
laundromat with their celebratory meal in hopes that they can swipe some new clothes.
While they're in the laundromat, a patrol car drives by and spots the two men.
Their pictures and descriptions have been sent out to police departments across the state.
The officer pulls around the corner and radios for backup. Clanton and Peterson munch on the cheese
and take large gulps of wine as they haven’t had either since they were put on death row.
They scout the laundromat for any clothing left unattended.
Suddenly a squad of police officers burst through the doors, guns raised. “Down on the ground,
hands above your head!” an office yells. Everyone in the laundromat gets down, including Clanton and
Peterson. The police officers rush over to the two escaped prisoners. Wine from their bottle pools on
the floor as Clanton and Peterson are handcuffed. Their brief taste of freedom has ended.
The rest of the inmates have made their way out of Virginia but make a mistake in the process.
As the Briley brothers, Tuggle, and Jones continue on foot; they keep their
eyes out for a vehicle to steal. They come across a pickup truck parked in a driveway.
The convicts jump in the truck and speed away without giving it a second thought.
The only problem is that the stolen truck has an easy-to-remember vanity plate, PEI-1.
The convicts head north and cross the border into Pennsylvania in their stolen truck.
They make it to Philadelphia, where the Briley brothers get
dropped off at their uncle’s car garage. “Where you headed now?” Linwood asks.
“Not sure exactly,” Tuggle responds. “But we’re going to try and make it across the border of
Canada.” Linwood nods his head. “Good luck.” The Briley brothers disappear into the garage.
Tuggle and Jones continue on their way up to Canada. They drive through the Tri-State
area and make it to Vermont. They know that the Canadian government will not extradite
fugitives that are facing the death penalty. If they are caught in Canada, they will go to jail,
but at least they won’t face the electric chair, which would be a terrible way to go.
“We’re going to make it,” Tuggle says as they drive through the Green Mountain State.
He wipes his arm across his forehead to get rid of the sweat that has begun to bead there.
Suddenly the engine starts to sputter. “Damn it!” Tuggle shouts. We are out of gas.
He opens the guard's wallet he stole. It’s empty.
They are in Jay, Vermont, the last town in the state before crossing the Canadian border.
“We can still make it,” Tuggle says to Jones. “What’s one more crime in the scheme of things?”
Tuggle gets out of the truck and starts walking towards town. Jones waits in the vehicle.
But as time goes by, he starts to get anxious. Jones slumps down in his seat and tries to take a
nap, but the thought of being captured when he is so close to the Canadian border keeps him awake.
Tuggle enters a gift shop on the edge of town. He pulls out a shiv he’s held onto since they
escaped death row. The store clerk gives him the 80 dollars in the register, and Tuggle quickly
leaves. He knows he only has minutes to get back to the car and refuel before the police are onto
him. He sprints down the road, but there is a police officer nearby who recognizes him.
The cop puts his lights and siren on and pursues Tuggle down the road.
When the police officer catches up, he cuts Tuggle off and gets out of the car with his gun raised.
"Freeze!" the cop shouts. Tuggle raises his hands in the air as his head slumps down.
He knows he is going back to prison, and there is no hope of ever getting out again.
As more and more time goes by, Jones starts to assume the worst. Tuggle should have been
back by now. They have been on the run for over a week, and although the Canadian border is close,
Jones is tired. He is dehydrated, hungry, and the flies have been relentless in the Vermont
summer heat. Jones opens the door and walks into town. He finds a phone and calls his mother.
After a brief conversation, she convinces him to turn himself in. He doesn’t want to run anymore;
his escape from death row ends less than 10 miles from the Canadian border.
Out of all the men who escaped from Mecklenburg Correctional Center,
only two remain. The Briley brothers have been free for almost three weeks.
They are working at a garage under false identities given to them by their uncle.
The police visit the uncle's shop, but he maintains he has no idea where his nephews are.
The police don’t believe him, so they tap his phone and wait for the brothers to make contact.
Nineteen days after the Briley brothers escaped, they made the mistake of calling a former contact
in New York City. The FBI manages to trace the call back to the garage they are working at.
The police and SWAT teams storm the garage. Linwood and James Briley make a run for it.
They hop over engine blocks and slide under cars jacked up on lifts.
"Stop or we'll open fire!" the cops yell. The brothers continue to run, but all exits have
been covered. They are tackled to the ground and handcuffed. Like the rest of the escapees, the
Birley brothers are arrested and brought back to the prison they escaped from several weeks prior.
Upon the return of the convicts, The Mecklenburg Correctional Center ramps up its security
procedures. It is now clear that the prison is not inescapable, but all the prisoners have
been returned and are locked in their cells. The mistakes of the past won't happen again.
A year and a half passes without incident. Linwood Briley is in handcuffs and ankle
shackles. He is led down the walkway of the cell block that he once escaped from.
The other inmates look on as the infamous former escapee is marched past them.
They know it will be the last time they will ever see this Briley brother.
The procession exits death row and heads towards a room in a different part of the facility.
A door opens, and Linwood Briley enters the chamber.
He is strapped into an electric chair. A priest reads his last rites before exiting the room.
Several people look on behind shielded glass as a switch is flicked and the man meets his end.
Each of the six men who escaped Mecklenburg death row eventually died at the hands of the State.
The Briley brothers were the first two to be executed. Linwood Briley,
who is claimed to be the mastermind behind the escape plan, was executed in 1984.
His brother was executed the following year. All of the escaped convicts were
put to death using the electric chair except for Lem Tuggle, who was executed by lethal
injection on December 12, 1996. He was the last of the Mecklenburg Six to be killed.
Now watch “50 Things Nobody Tells You About Being in Prison.”
Or check out “Last 60 Minutes of Being on Death Row.”