JAIL'S TRUSTY PROGRAM CHANGES AFTER ESCAPE

JACKSON -- Though some jail inmates may be called trusty, Cape Girardeau county jail administrator Lt. Michael Morgan trusts no one who wears an orange jumpsuit.

"Trusty is a bad word for these people," he said. "Everybody who comes in here is deemed untrustworthy."

This was never more apparent than in June when a jail trusty, possibly two, helped an accused murderer escape.

Russell E. Bucklew, a man many consider extremely dangerous, escaped from the county jail in the trash. A trusty who worked inside the laundry room, Doug Roth, allegedly helped Bucklew slip inside a trash bag, tied it over his head and placed him inside a garbage can. He then piled evening supper refuse on top of Bucklew and transferred the can to the deadlock area.

The can was then transported to an outside dumpster by a second trusty who was responsible for refuse removal. This trusty was accompanied by a corrections officer who was unaware Bucklew was in the trash.

The first trusty has been charged with aiding the escape of a prisoner. Sheriff John Jordan is fairly certain the second trusty was somehow involved but charges have yet to be filed.

"We personally feel that the person should have known something was off when he put the bag in the dumpster," Jordan said.

Bucklew was caught two days later but not until after he stole a vehicle and assaulted two people, apparently out for revenge against a former girlfriend. Bucklew is charged with raping her during an earlier incident after killing her boyfriend.

Bucklew has been under closer watch since his escape. He has been placed in a segregated cell directly in front to the jail supervisors' booth and is watched 24 hours a day. He is allowed one hour recreation with a guard watching him.

Jordan said the night Bucklew escaped was very busy. Bucklew was in a religious service and he had a little more freedom to move about. Constitutionally, religious services can't be denied an inmate unless he has shown he might try to escape, which Bucklew hadn't at the time.

"He was targeting this time in his mind to escape," Jordan said. "He knew it would allow him to move around while the religious service was going on."

And the corrections officer may have been turned around while Bucklew slipped by to meet the trusty, Jordan said. The officers have to turn around to make entries in their log books or answer the phone.

"He picked that time because there was a lot of activity going on," Jordan said. "Cape police brought several people here to be booked and we had five people brought in for Farmington runs."

For whatever reason, Bucklew escaped and this has caused the trusty program to come under intense public scrutiny.

"We're looking at the whole trusty situation and making some changes," said Jordan.

Trusties are jail inmates who perform various duties including cooking, washing clothes, sweeping, mopping and vacuuming, Morgan said.

And the trusty program worked pretty well until June.

"Every once in a while you get a couple of bad eggs," Morgan said. "Who would have thought this would happen? We don't have enough manpower, we only have so many deputies."

Jordan said it takes six trusties every day to help the jail function and this provides definite savings to the taxpayers.

"When you talk about hiring six more personnel, you're talking megabucks," Jordan said.

The trusties are selected by jail supervisors and are then approved by a judge. They look for low-risk inmates that don't have serious charges against them.

But Jordan says the pool of trusties keeps getting smaller and smaller.

Several years ago, the jail used to primarily house those who had committed misdemeanors. Now, of the jail's approximately 80 inmates, 70 are there for felony crimes.

Jordan is seriously looking at making some changes in the trusty system to make future escapes less likely.

For one, the trusties no longer take out the trash, deputies do. The point will soon become moot as the jail will be going to a compacted trash system.

Jordan is also considering putting a reflective glass in the corrections officers' booth. This way the inmates won't be able to see in and would be "strictly guessing," as to if the officer is watching intently, making a log or answering phones, he said.

And in a case when the jail is extremely busy, like the night Bucklew escaped, the religious events will be postponed until things calm down. If services are already in progress they will be cut short.

"We want them to have their religious events, but security is the most important thing in a jail," Jordan said.

Will this make the jail unescapable?

"I don't think any jail is unescapable," Morgan said. "If there's a will, there's a way. They have nothing better to do but sit around and think of ways to get out."

But he does think the addition of the compactor will eliminate some of the jail's few flaws: "I don't know of any flaws, but I'm sure there are some. We just hope we find them before a prisoner does."