TRAVERSE CITY -- Four inmates, including two murderers, dug a tunnel from their cell that reached beyond the fences of an Upper Peninsula prison and put them within six feet of escape, a state official said Wednesday.
An officer at Kinross Correctional Facility discovered the entrance during a routine search Saturday, said Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections.
The men apparently had spent months digging the chamber, which extended six feet below the floor and 25-30 feet outward, he said. The prison remained on lockdown as authorities looked for other tunnels.
"We're going inch by inch through that entire facility," Marlan said.
State police and prison officials are investigating how the prisoners nearly made their way to freedom -- even breaking through a layer of concrete in the cell floor -- without being caught sooner, he said.
"Keep in mind these are prisoners with a lot of time on their hands and they become very creative," Marlan said.
Kinross is a former Air Force base converted to a prison in 1978. It's in Chippewa County, about 15 miles south of Sault Ste. Marie and 325 miles north of Detroit.
Most of its 1,784 inmates are classified as medium-security and others minimum-security, based not on the crimes they committed but on their behavior in the prison system and number of years served, Marlan said.
Security designations don't refer to the way prison buildings are configured or the amount of fencing. Instead, they determine how much time inmates spend outside their cells, how closely they are monitored and what privileges they're granted.
All four of the cell's occupants have been imprisoned since the 1990s, including a 48-year-old man serving a life term without parole for first-degree murder, rape and kidnapping. Another, age 33, was given three life sentences for second-degree murder and armed robbery.
The third also is serving life for rape and robbery and the fourth up to 50 years for bank robbery. Both are in their 40s.
The entrance to the chamber was in the floor against a wall and concealed with linoleum, Marlan said.
The men apparently had filled plastic bags with sand as they dug and used them to support the tunnel. "It was cramped, but a human could crawl through there," Marlan said.
The prison's interior fence is topped with razor wire, which covers the sides and top of the exterior fence. The tunnel extended past both. But the men had not begun digging upward toward the surface six feet away, Marlan said.
He declined comment on what tools were used or where they came from, but said police were studying the inmates' mail and phone records to determine whether outsiders had aided the plot.
"Prisoners who escape can't survive for very long without some help," he said. "They have no money, no transportation, no clothing" except prison uniforms.
A man serving life at Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility in the western Upper Peninsula escaped briefly in August 2005. Two women employees of the prison, including a guard, pleaded guilty to helping him.
Information From: AP Wire Services
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