Killer spent months on escape attempt

HOBBS, N.M. (KRQE) - KRQE News 13 learned it was a convicted killer that attempted a prison escape in southeast New Mexico last week, and how he did it.

Police said inmate Carlos Garcia told them he worked on his escape route for months.

More than 1,200 inmates are housed at the Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs where Garcia, 31, is alleged to have made a break for freedom on Aug. 20.

"In the 14 years that I've been here, we've never had an incident like that here," said Officer Mike Stone of the Hobbs Police Department.

Police detectives investigated the case.

Police said early that morning, a guard found Garcia outside. Initially, Garcia claimed he didn't know how he got there.

"He said that sometimes he does crazy things, and he kind of acted like he didn't know what he had done," Stone said.  "But then he admitted to doing it."

Court documents show Garcia later spilled the beans and admitted to police that he broke the 6-foot-by-1-foot window in his cell along with the metal bar that went across it.

"The tools that he said he used was a razor blade on the end of a Popsicle stick, and he had worked at it for a while," Stone said.

Garcia told detectives it took him about five months to break the metal bar. He even told detectives he fashioned a fake window out of plastic to make it look like the real window was still there.

Police said Garcia eventually squeezed through the small opening of the window, using bed sheets to propel himself down two stories.

Garcia said once he was out, he had second thoughts and climbed back in.

Department of Corrections officials said on the same day Garcia attempted to escape, they moved him to a maximum security penitentiary in Santa Fe for public safety concerns.

The Corrections Department also said all prison cells are checked regularly.

"I know their measures of security, and security is the utmost of importance to them," Stone said.  "This individual didn't make it out of there."

While Garcia claims he could have made it all the way out if he really wanted to, police said that's highly unlikely given the additional levels of security he still needed to go through.

Garcia was convicted of murder in 2005 for killing two young men in the Las Cruces area in 2000. Court records show he was sentenced in 2005 to two consecutive life sentences followed by 55 years, for charges including murder, armed robbery, kidnapping and arson.

After the attempted escape, Department of Corrections officials said they are inspecting all cells statewide to make sure inmates cannot escape. They said they could not comment further on the case pending their own investigation.