This undated photo made available by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety shows Corrections Officer Wendy Shannon. Officials say Shannon died Monday, Oct. 30, 2017, from injuries she suffered during a deadly inmate escape attempt. Shannon is the third person killed in the Oct. 12 incident at Pasquotank Correctional Institution. (North Carolina Department of Public Safety via AP.)
November 02, 2017 - 5:53 PM
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 Geoffrey Howe died Thursday of injuries in the Oct. 12 incident at Pasquotank Correctional Institution.
Higgins says the 31-year-old had worked for a year as a maintenance mechanic at the sewing plant where the breakout attempt was centred.
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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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.
News from © The Associated Press, 2017