HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Condemned killer Martin Gurule was the first inmate to escape Texas' death row since a member of the Bonnie and Clyde gang broke out in 1934. He didn't get far.
His bloated body, clad in cardboard that apparently protected him from razor-wire prison fences, was found Thursday in a river about a mile from Ellis Unit, home of the state's death row.A couple of prison workers fishing on their day off spotted the body floating at the mouth of a creek that empties into the Trinity River.
"I think we're relieved," said Gary Johnson, director of the prison system. "We knew as long as we had a death row inmate outside our compound that there was a potential of public risk. We know now that public risk has ended."
Even though off-duty workers happened across Gurule's corpse, prison officials insisted during the weeklong hunt that he hadn't slipped through their dragnet.
"We were asked all weeklong by a lot of people: 'Why would you think he's still here? How could he possibly still be anywhere in the area?' " Johnson said. "And we told you our philosophy: Until we have evidence that he's not here, we assume he's here."
Hundreds of officers on horseback, following dog teams and in mobile and aerial patrols scoured the snake- and mosquito-infested woods and swamps around the prison 15 miles northeast of Huntsville since late Thanksgiving night.
Authorities speculated Thursday Gurule, 29, hid under a bridge over rain-swollen Harmon Creek, but was forced into the swift water when the dogs and officers on horseback neared.
"It was clearly the intense pressure put on him by search teams and dogs and horseback that forced him to swim Harmon Creek," prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said.
Drowning was suspected as the cause of death. An autopsy was scheduled. Officials said results would not be known for some time.