WaPo: “The escape of 10 inmates from a New Orleans jail last week, and the tense chase that has so far resulted in the capture of five fugitives, is reminiscent of another brazen jailbreak that gripped the entire country nearly 25 years ago.
In December 2000, seven prisonersserving time for violent crimes ranging from murder to child abuse escaped from a maximum-security prison unit near Kenedy, Texas, resulting in the state’s most infamous manhunt in decades.
While on the run, the inmates carried out armed robberies and killed a police officer. In the end, six of the “Texas Seven,” as theycame to be known, were caught and sentenced to death. Four of them have since been executed. Two still sit on death row. One escapee took his own life to avoid arrest.
In a case that played out on national news, authorities needed more than five weeks to track down all of the Texas Seven.”