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Sunday, April 27, 1997

Inmate kills self following deputy hostage incident, officials say

SEMINOLE, Texas (AP) - An escaped inmate shot and killed himself Saturday with a gun he and another prisoner took from a Gaines County deputy they had overpowered then left handcuffed to oilfield equipment, officials said.

Carl James, 33, and Chad Spurgeon, 20, were caught around 5 a.m. Saturday on a tractor, officials said. Law enforcement officials from several agencies pursued the tractor and finally disabled it with gunfire.

James was taken into custody, but Spurgeon was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Jim Nance, a police communications officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety in Midland.

"Spurgeon had been convicted of sexual assault. James was convicted of murder and was waiting transportation to the Texas Department of Corrections," Nance said.

James told officers where they could find 55-year-old deputy Jim Haynes, whom they had abandoned around dusk Friday, Nance said.

Haynes was found on an oil lease about 2-1/2 miles northeast of Seminole suffering from hypothermia, numerous cuts and bruises, and loss of circulation in the hands, Nance said.

He was taken to Memorial Hospital in Seminole and transferred to a Lubbock hospital, but no information was released on his condition at his request, said Kirk Christy, chief executive officer of Memorial Hospital.

The Gaines County sheriff's office in Seminole, 80 miles southwest of Lubbock, said the prisoners overpowered Haynes about 3:30 p.m. Friday as he was returning them to jail after a trip to the law library at the courthouse.

They drove away with him in the jail's van and left him at an oil lease outside of town. Less than two miles away, the two inmates got the van stuck on a turnrow, officials said.

They walked to a barn, where they stole a tractor and proceeded northeast. Officers caught up with them in a field southwest of Loop, in northern Gaines County. Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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