The Nation - News from June 17, 1988

Eight inmates, three of them convicted murderers, escaped from the only maximum-security penitentiary in Kentucky, and authorities said they likely split up after they fled. At least nine other inmates also tried but failed to flee the Kentucky State Penitentiary, near Eddyville, after several small fires were started in another section of the building to divert the attention of guards, prison spokesman Bobby Waller said. The escapees apparently sawed their sliding cell doors from their tracks, cut through a prison window and climbed down an extension cord, officials said. One prisoner was found hanging from the window and eight others had cut marks on them, indicating they also tried to get out, Waller said. State police dispatched two light airplanes to help in the search around the penitentiary.