Utah's most prolific known serial killer planned to escape from prison last spring just days after he confessed to killing a woman and three teenage girls.
Roberto V. Arguelles organized a detailed escape plan and hoped to carry it out as he led investigators in April to the graves of his victims, according to court records and corrections officials.Arguelles - who admits killing about as many women in Utah as did Ted Bundy - asked a friend outside prison to hide a gun for him along the route to the scene of one of the murders.
"He was going to tell (detectives) he'd buried a body in the location and offer to take them there. When they all got there, there was supposed to be a person waiting there, and (Arguelles) was supposed to grab the gun," said Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford.
Prison investigators heard about the plan and changed the route, Ford said. They also beefed-up security with SWAT officers and made Arguelles wear shackles when he led detectives to the three burial sites.
"We knew the person (that was supposed to help Arguelles) wouldn't be there, and we knew there wouldn't be a gun. We took every precaution necessary," Ford said, refusing to talk about how investigators were tipped-off.
Arguelles, 34, has repeatedly said he wants to die for his crimes and has blamed prosecutors for delays in his case that cause his victims' families more pain.
"Because of the state, this thing has gone nowhere. I would have pled guilty a long time ago. . . . It's just ridiculous," he complained in a Deseret News interview three weeks ago.
Arguelles did not talk about his escape plan or two motions he filed from his prison cell that would do exactly what he faults prosecutors for doing - delaying the case.
One "pro se" motion asks the judge to consider throwing prosecutors Kent Morgan and Richard Hamp off his case for a "conflict of interest." The two were successful in a motion to have public defenders removed from Arguelles' case because of a conflict of interest in the public defenders' office.
One of the investigators in the defenders' office was a sheriff's detective who worked on an old case involving Arguelles. Third District Judge L.A. Dever ruled the circumstance was a conflict of interest.
Arguelles' new attorney, Ed Brass, believes the pro se motion could just be "frustration" on his client's part. Regardless, it could require an extra court date.
In his second motion, Arguelles seeks to find the source of the tip that apparently thwarted his escape attempt. It, too, will require more time and attention from the judge.
Arguelles was charged with four counts of capital murder after he confessed to abducting and murdering Lisa Martinez, 16; Tuesday Roberts, 15; Stephanie Blundell, 13; and Margo Bond, 42, while on parole in 1992.
He strangled three of his victims and repeatedly stabbed and slashed his fourth, he said.
Arguelles led investigators to the bodies of Martinez and Roberts, which were buried at his stepfather's West Salt Lake pig farm. He also took police to the shallow grave of Margo Bond in the West Desert and to the scene of Blundell's death near American Fork Canyon.
A preliminary hearing, which will determine whether probable cause exists for a trial, is scheduled for two days on April 24 and 25.
Bundy, just hours before he was executed in Florida in 1989, told then-Salt Lake County Sheriff's Detective Dennis Couch that he killed four women in Utah. Couch said Bundy confessed to killing a fifth woman as he was led to the electric chair, after Couch had left the state.