Page 16 - James Slagle News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Ray had been an escapee from missouri state penitentiary when he assassinated king. >> the main thing he was interested in was escaping. now when i first met him, i was interested in escaping too. we got into a couple of plots together that never worked out. one we were going to go through the roof of the auditorium where they showed movies. we did get the hole cut but it was discovered before we had a chance to use it. we didn't get caught, locked up over it. they found it and tightened security in that area. >> in 1977 ray plotted another escape with james slagle and two other inmates. the p...

And so i looked into me and saw the ugliness. i saw the hatred, the violence, the misery. and i said i'm going to be something else. i am going to become a thinking man. by the way, that's hard to do. but i spent years reading, studying, looking within myself. i'm one of the most fortunate men that ever lived. >> slagle runs the library and provides legal help to other inmates. >> where they made the error on your time, your two sentences are running concurrently, which means they run together. however, when they give you your jail credit, they only put the jail credit on the one sentence and ...

>> james slagle, brushy mountain's longest-serving inmate, told us how ray led a group of inmates over the wall using a makeshift ladder crafted from chains. they made their escape while a tower officer took an afternoon nap. that's your corner where james and doug and spider monkey and the others went over. of course the fence was not here at that time, it was just a mountain serving as the fourth wall of the penitentiary. >> after ray climbed over, six more inmates followed before an officer and another tower finally saw them and shot, striking the last escapee in the shoulder. >> the way it...

So i sat and watched it happen. >> james slagle, brushy mountain's longest-serving inmate, told us how ray led inmates over a wall using a makeshift ladder crafted from chains. they made their escape while a tower officer took an afternoon nap. that's your corner where james and doug and spider monkey and the others went over. of course the fence was not here at that time, it was just a mountain serving as the fourth wall of the penitentiary. >> after ray climbed over, six more inmates followed before an officer and another tower finally saw them, and shot, striking the last escapee in the sho...

During our shoot at brushy mountain, we met an inmate who was not only there, but tried to talk ray out of it. >> i told him, i said, james, you've got no pickup, no car, i said as soon as your foot touches down they know it's you, there will be a million cops in the valley and no one's going to get away. it's just a futile effort and i don't believe in wasting energy. so i sat and watched it happen. >> james slagle, brushy mountain's longest-serving inmate, told us how ray led inmates over a wall using a makeshift ladder crafted from chains. they made their escape while a tower officer took a...