RALEIGH, N.C. – The Latest on a deadly inmate escape attempt at a North Carolina prison (all times local):
8:45 p.m.
Officials say a fourth worker at a North Carolina prison has died from injuries suffered during an inmate escape attempt last month.
Department of Public Safety spokesman Jerry Higgins says in a news release that maintenance mechanic Geoffrey Howe died Thursday of injuries in the Oct. 12 incident at Pasquotank Correctional Institution.
Higgins says the 31-year-old had worked for DPS for a year.
Forty-nine-year-old Wendy Shannon and 35-five-year-old Justin Smith, both corrections officers, and 50-year-old sewing plant manager Veronica Darden were also killed. Several other prison workers were injured. Four inmates face murder charges.
Pasquotank County Sheriff Randy Cartwright has said the inmates set a fire inside the sewing plant to divert guards and apparently planned to climb over prison fences.
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This item has been corrected to show that Howe was a general maintenance mechanic — not specific to the sewing plant.
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12:30 p.m.
North Carolina prison officials still can't put their finger on how many guards and inmates had been assaulted at an understaffed prison prior to the deadliest attempted prison breakout in state history last month.
A state prison official said Thursday they don't know how many employees or inmates at Pasquotank Correctional Institution have been injured by violence in the past year. Three employees died and one remains gravely injured after the failed breakout three weeks ago.
State prisons spokesman Jerry Higgins said he also had no tally of how many prison workers have been assaulted at other prisons across the state since the Pasquotank attack Oct. 12. At least one corrections officer was attacked by an inmate in that time at North Carolina's main women's prison.
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