After Michael Burham's arrest, questions linger about his escape from Warren County Prison

WARREN, Pa. — The arrest of prison escapee Michael C. Burham on Saturday was fairly straightforward, according to the Pennsylvania State Police.

All the details of how he escaped from the Warren County Prison nine days earlier remain unclear.

Burham's arrest came about after a barking dog alerted a resident in Conewango Township, outside of the city of Warren, that someone was on his property on Jackson Run Road shortly before 4 p.m. on Saturday, state police said.

The resident had a brief conversation with the person, in which the person said "something about camping." The property owner recognized the person as Burham and contacted authorities as Burham fled into the woods.

Police agencies surrounded the area and arrested Burham without incident Saturday at about 5:50 p.m. in the area of Logan Road in Conewango Township, about 6 miles northwest of the city of Warren. He was wearing his prison uniform inside out and was not armed.

Burham, on the run in the woods of Warren County since July 6, looked "tired and worn out," Lt. Col. George Bivens, the state police's deputy commissioner of operations, said at a news conference following the arrest.

Bivens said Burham's mistake was that he "came out into the open and was spotted by an individual."

"That's been our strategy all along is to push him hard, to have him make a mistake," Bivens said. "He finally did and it was spotted by an individual."

Burham is being held at the Erie County Prison as he awaits arraignment on the escape charge in Warren County. He is being held on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, state police said.

Probe into Burham's prison escape continues after his arrest

The state police are not investigating how Burham got out of the Warren County Prison, located next to the county courthouse in downtown Warren, a city of about 9,200 people on the edge of the 514,209-acre Allegheny National Forest and about 66 miles southeast of Erie in northwestern Pennsylvania.

The city of Warren police is handling the probe on the breakout. The investigation is ongoing.

The Warren police filed a felony escape charge against Burham on July 7, and the arrest records provide some details about how Burham is believed to have left the 139-bed prison at about 11:20 p.m. on July 6.

According to the criminal complaint against Burham in the escape case, he was in the exercise yard with several other inmates when he climbed on to a pullup machine and got on the prison's roof. He then used bedsheets tied together to rappel down another side of the prison, get on a portico and then jump to the street.

From there, Burham was gone. He was last seen wearing a prison-issued denim jacket, an orange-striped jumpsuit and orange Croc-style shoes.

The police records show that the prison reported the escape minutes after it happened, at about 11:26 p.m.

How Burham was even able to get to the point where he could break out of the prison remains something of a mystery. Several questions remain unanswered.

Did Burham have help in the escape?

How long did he plan it?

Where did he get all those bedsheets?

Burham escaped through a hole in a ceiling made of fencing

The location of the exercise yard was a factor in the escape, the Warren County commissioners said in public statements in the days after Burham was reported missing.

The commissioner described the yard as a 40-foot-by-40-foot room "with a cage" on the top floor of the jail facility. Commissioner Jeff Eggleston later explained to the Erie Times-News that the exercise yard has regular walls like in the rest of the prison, but that its ceiling is a cage made up of steel girders and a chain link fence. The caged ceiling is open to the elements.

Burham stood on the exercise machine to access a hole in the chain link fence on the top of the cage, Eggleston said. Burham was then able to walk on the roof of the prison and get to the building's west side, where he used the rope made of bedsheets to get down the side of the building.

The commissioners explained that Burham was supposed to be in the exercise yard at such a late hour on July 6.

He had been at the prison since June 19, after he was ordered held on $1 million bond on kidnapping charges. That case was related to Burham fleeing the area of Jamestown, New York, north of Warren, after Jamestown police said he was wanted for questioning in the fatal shooting of a 34-year-old woman, Kala Hodgkin, on May 11. At the time of her death, Burham was wanted on a charge that he raped her in a prior incident.

During his flight, police said, Burham kidnapped an elderly couple, in Sheffield, also near Warren, and forced them to drive him in their SUV to South Carolina. Police arrested Burham near North Charleston on May 24, and arranged to return him to Warren on the kidnapping charges. The elderly couple was found unharmed at a cemetery in South Carolina.

While at the Warren County Prison, Burham was entitled to exercise along with the other inmates. The county commissioners, who are also on the Warren County Prison Board, said the prison was following the law in its treatment of Burham.

"It's important to understand that the law has changed in the past five years, and prisoners must have access to yard time and outside exercise," the three commissioners said in a statement on July 11. "With a facility as small as ours that is close to full, inmates must be taken to the yard in shifts.

"That happens all day and evening to ensure all inmates have appropriate yard time. Therefore, inmates are legally required to access the yard, and it is crucial for the Prison Board to ensure the facility is secure."

Burham's escape shows that the exercise yard was not secure. The commissioners on July 11 said they had ordered repairs to the yard and upgrades to other areas of the prison to improve safety. They also said they had ordered "the exercise equipment be removed and replaced with equipment that does not provide access to higher positions in the facility."

Warren County commissioners vow fixes over 'terrible situation'

While those changes are occurring, the commissioners said, the county would review the operations of the prison staff, but said any discipline would be confidential. The commissioners on July 12 unanimously voted to contract with the state Department of Corrections to review the prison's operations and policies and procedures.

The commissioners have declined to comment on where Burham got the bedsheets and whether he had help. They said those areas of inquiry would be part of the police investigation.

No matter what that investigation reveals, Burham's escape was clearly an embarrassment for Warren County.

"To the people of this community, let me express my personal regret that this happened," the vice chairman of the Board of Commissioners, Ben Kafferlin, said at a news conference on July 12. "Let me say that I am so sorry for the sleepless nights that we've all experienced and the cloud of uncertainty that is yet to give way to answers. I'm personally very sorry that this man escaped from our custody.

"Every county employee is in this with you. None of us have been unaffected. But our professional staff has risen to the challenge. We are resolved that we will, after this event, be stronger, better and a more effective team."

Said the chairwoman of the Board of Commissioners, Tricia Durbin: "Needless to say, this is a very sad and unfortunate situation. I take my role as commissioner very seriously and this is not reflective of my personal passion to act in all ways in a manner of what's best for the residents in this community.

"And in that regard, I apologize for this terrible situation. This is not something I ever imagined occurring as part of my role as commissioner."

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNpalattella.

A.J. Rao can be reached at arao@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNRao.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: After arrest, questions remain about how inmate Michael Burham escaped