WHEELER DEALER: Chapter 14
A month after they capture him in Washington after that shoot-em-up on I-5, Kessler is walking the yard in Rocky Butte with Roger, who of course was arrested just a couple months earlier on his way to kill that dirty rotten snitch Dennis Reed. To say the least, business has not been good, and as they are both aware, the future does not look bright for either of them.
The way Roger says it is that he’s decided to take the fifteen-year deal the government is offering him. With time off for good behavior that would mean twelve, maybe even less counting parole. He’s never really had a family before and they’ve got a one-year-old baby girl now, which changes things.
“I can do it,” he says.
No need to spell it out. They’ve known each other too long for that, and if you’re a proper criminal, or maybe even a politician, you don’t say what you’re actually thinking. What he’s saying, though, is that he’s no longer interested in escaping
“But I can’t,” says Stephen. “Not without picking up more time.” Meaning of course additional time for another beef or two in prison. The U.S. Attorney’s office has just offered him twenty, but with all the charges already hanging over his head, he knows the odds of him ever getting out are slim to none.
In other words, he’s going to do it. It’s just a question of how and when.
A day or so later they’re out walking the yard again. “You know the courthouse route you’ve been talking about?” Stephen says. “Think you could bring in a gun that way?”
“If it was small enough,” says Roger.
“You still got that little belt buckle pistol?” says Stephen.
“Just leave me out of it,” says Roger, in case there’s any doubt left in anyone’s mind.
In fact, Sandra, who’s still hiding out up in Seattle has it – along with all the other guns that were in the van when she dropped Roger off at the airport for that ill-fated flight to Eugene. And from here on out, as subsequent court proceedings will make clear, it’s Sandra who will be involved in the escape at almost every step along the way.
Roger does acknowledge that somewhere along the line he probably advised Stephen that the best time to do it would be on a Sunday night when the Christians were there and there were fewer security personnel on duty. Other than that, though, he just makes sure he’s far away – transferred to Leavenworth to begin serving his sentence – a good month before it hits the fan.
It’s late July 25, 1982, a Sunday. As the sun sets over Rocky Butte the preachers are indeed out there on the catwalk that runs along the row of A Block cells, bringing the word of the Lord to their benighted audience. A Block, it should be noted, is the prison’s maximum security sector.
Arrangements for the escape, of course, are already in place. A week or so earlier, Sandra dropped off a package – an ounce of weed with the tiny Charter Arms beltbuckle pistol concealed inside – behind some shubbery at a parking lot divider at Mall 205.
That night the sister of Jamie Gardner, one of the escapees to be – with no reason to suspect that there was anything in it but good old weed – had picked it up then placed it on a ledge above the west entrance to the downtown courthouse.
Next morning when the inmates arrived at the courthouse, the trustee who brought their meals to them every day removed it from the ledge, placed it in his food cart, and took it up to the sixth floor holding cells. Whether he gave it there to Skillful Davis, who then passed it on to Gary Scott Anderson, or gave it directly to Anderson, we really don’t know.
But it was, in fact, Gary Scott Anderson, Kessler’s old cell mate back in Marion but now a fellow prisoner in Rocky Butte, who keistered the pistol – described in a Charter Arms email post as 3.5 by 2.25 inches and capable of firing five .22 caliber rounds – and brought it back that evening to Kessler.
One more thing you probably need to know before the escape goes down:
The A Block, which has fifteen cells, is situated on the second floor of the Rocky Butte prison. To pass either in or out of it you have to go through a double-gated checkpoint, or sally port, manned by a single guard stationed at a desk behind the second gate.
The sally port is standard feature in all U.S. prisons. The way it works is that the guard opens the inner gate, and when the person steps inside the guard closes the gate behind him. Then the guard opens the second gate and the person is allowed pass through.
To get past the sally port, Kessler has selected an otherwise undistinguished criminal by the name of Roger Scott Allen, precisely for the reason that he’s least likely to raise any suspicions when he approaches the guard.
Allen asks the guard to open the first gate so he can retrieve a mop someone has conveniently left behind in the enclosure. But when the guard lets him in, instead of picking up the mop and bucket Allen draws down on him with the pistol.
At which point Kessler, who’s come up behind him, takes the pistol from Allen and tells the guard to open the second gate. Then along with Allen and four other escapees – Donnie Booth, Jamie Gardner, Gary Scott Anderson and Ferron Hawkins – he locks the guard and the preachers in the A Block cells.
Kessler then tells one of the black-suited preachers to disrobe, puts on the preacher’s clothes, and heads down the ramp leading to the first floor. To get out of the prison they still have to get past a locked metal door, known as Gate 69, and a second sally port at the loading dock entrance.
Halfway down the ramp Kessler sees Sergeant Turney coming his way down the corridor from the chow hall. As Turney will later say, something doesn’t seem quite right but he doesn’t recognize Kessler until it’s too late.
Kessler shoves the pistol in Turney’s face and leads him to Gate 69 where, according to prison procedure, he gets on his walkie-talkie and says, “Turnney at Gate 69”.
As one of the two guards in the control booth leaves his post to open the door, Kessler forces Turney to place his face up against a narrow two-inch slot in the door – also per procedure – to let the guard on the other side can see who it is.
The big metal door swings open, and when it does Kessler and his crew take him captive as well.
Which leaves only officer Irv Burkett, a 61-year-old sheriff’s office veteran, just six months from retirement, sitting alone in the control room behind what can best be described as like the glassed-in ticket booth at an old movie theater.
Kessler reaches under the opening in the window, points the gun at Burkett. ”Don’t do it,” he says when he sees Burkett start to reach for the alarm button just an arm’s length away.
With the keys they’ve just taken from the other control room guard, Booth and Anderson are trying desperately to find the one that’ll unlock the door to the control room so they can get in and open the sally port gates at the loading dock.
When Burkett tries it again, Kessler says it again. “Don’t do it.” When Burkett does it again, Kessler shoots him in the head. I wish I could tell you otherwise but that’s what happened.
A frantic minute or so later Booth and Anderson find the right key. Inside the control room they push the button that opens the loading dock gates and they’re off and running.