John Warnick said it was bad enough that he was the one guarding the Gunnison prison's entry gate when Keith Lamar Shepherd escaped in November.
According to prison officials, Shepherd hid in an exiting delivery truck while working in the prison's kitchen. While on the lam, officials believe Shepherd committed at least a half dozen new crimes, including bank robberies and a rape, across the West."I was very upset," Warnick said. "It's the worst thing that can happen to an (officer) is to have an escape."
But within hours of the escape, Warnick said things went from bad to unbearable as prison officials questioned his actions and accused him of not doing his job.
- Warnick denies that his supervisors ever warned him that milk crates could potentially be used as a way for prisoners to escape.
- He says prison officials did not train him how to do his job properly.
- He says Shepherd had threatened to escape but prison officials did nothing about it.
Corrections officials say Warnick had been told the crates could be used to conceal an inmate and that the 15-year veteran officer made a mistake.
When Shepherd slipped out of the prison in November, he hid himself by stacking milk crates around him, which were stacked on a wooden pallet. Then he somehow wrapped clear plastic wrap around the pallet and crates, which are stacked about five high, Warnick said. He and other officers believe Shepherd must have had help in order to wrap the crates properly.
Corrections spokesman Jack Ford said there is no evidence Shepherd had any assistance when he hopped into the center of a stack of crates and rode out the prison gates.
Because prison officers usually watch while inmates prepare the milk crates for shipping, Warnick said no one ever checked the crates or looked inside them.
But a deputy warden called Warnick into his office several hours after the escape and asked him why he hadn't checked the milk crates when he knew they were a potential danger.
Warnick recently quit because he said he wanted to talk about his experience. Prison policy prohibits employees from talking about prison procedure or publicly criticizing the administration. He was only four and a half years away from retirement and had worked at the prison's gatehouse for two months when the escape occurred.
His supervisor insists he did tell Warnick the crates could be used to conceal an inmate. Earle Hobby, deputy warden of security for the Central Utah Correctional Facility, said Warnick's challenges are unfounded.
"Warnick made a serious mistake," Hobby said. "He failed to do his job."
Prison officials say Warnick received extensive field and written training at his new post at the gatehouse. Hobby said in talking to current and former gate guards, he hasn't found one of them who didn't get in the back of exiting trucks for checks.
Warnick admits he didn't conduct such checks but said he was never trained to do so.
Warnick also contends other officers and inmates heard Shepherd bragging that he was going to escape before the anniversary of his previous escape.
Yet, Shepherd's security status wasn't changed, and he was allowed to continue working in the kitchen, where vehicles from outside the prison make deliveries and other non-prison workers have access.
Ford said two reviews of the incident found no evidence that any guard or department officer heard Shepherd's threats of escape. If inmates heard, they didn't tell officials either.
When Shepherd first escaped in November of 1992, he scaled two perimeter fences at the prison facility in Draper. He was free for four months, during which time he committed numerous new crimes before being captured in Nevada.
After that first escape, Shepherd was sent to maximum security in the Gunnison prison. But despite his previous escape and violent history, he quickly earned medium-security status because he behaved himself.
Since Shepherd's second escape, Corrections officials have moved every prisoner with a record of escape to more secure buildings, Ford said.
The night after Shepherd's second escape in November, Warnick was called at home and told he was being reassigned to a position inside the prison. He refused and instead called in sick. Because he was simultaneously being treated for depression, he took time off to get his medication stabilized, something he said his experience made more difficult.
Six weeks later his doctor told him he was stable and had to go back to work. He still refused to change posts because he said his peers would blame him for the escape. Corrections officials put him on paid administrative leave on Dec. 16. In April, they held an administrative hearing on his case, found him derelict and his termination was recommended.
He appealed to Corrections Director Lane McCotter and said McCotter told him, "We may never really know what happened."
"I was appalled the department could leave this without resolution," Warnick said. "The kind of work they do, this is something they absolutely have to know."
He offered to take a lie detector test to prove he knew nothing about the milk crates and hadn't received the proper training. When Corrections officials said that wouldn't do any good, he offered to pay for it himself. He claims McCotter said he would accept the results but not look at them. Warnick never took the lie detector test.
Twenty-four hours later, Warnick was reinstated.
"I was surprised," he said. "It was amazing."
But when officials told him he was being reprimanded for refusing to accept responsibility for knowing procedures but not checking the milk crates, he quit. He said rather than keep quiet, he'd go public.
He's written Gov. Mike Leavitt, and he's talking to a lawyer.
"What bothers me the most," Warnick said, "is that integrity is an important aspect of security, and security is the main thing we're about in Corrections.
"If I'm telling you the truth, there is a major cover-up," he said. "If they're telling the truth, why would they hire me back?"
Hobby said there is nothing to cover up.