Daniel Renwick, Tracy Province, and John McCluskey escaped on July 30 from a private prison in Kingman, Arizona. Renwick was caught in Colorado on August 1 after a gun battle with police. The other two remain at large. Renwick was serving a 22-year sentence for second-degree murder, Province was serving a life sentence for murder and robbery, and McCluskey was serving a 15-year sentence for attempted second-degree murder, aggravated assault and discharge of a firearm.
The trio was aided in their escape by Casslyn Welch, McCluskey's fiancee and cousin. Welch is believed to have tossed some wire cutters over the prison fence. The trio cut their way out and escaped without being detected. Welch is believed to have picked up the escapees. Claudia Washburn, McCluskey’s elderly mother, has since been arrested for aiding the escapees by furnishing them with money.
Forensic evidence has now linked at least one of the inmates to the killings of Linda and Gary Haas, both 61, a traveling Oklahoma couple. Their badly burned skeletal remains were found in a charred camper Wednesday morning on a remote ranch in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Their pickup truck was found abandoned that afternoon 100 miles west in Albuquerque.
This begs the question: Why were these dangerous criminals confined in a private medium security prison? What does the escape say about the lack of security provided by on-the-cheap private prisons? The trio’s escape and the murders of Linda and Gary Haas can be directly attributed to the budget cutting measures now being resorted to by many of our states.
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