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Escapee had help, police chief says

A manhunt continues for the alleged serial rapist, who somehow sawed through bars to get past a jail roof vent.

By wire services
Published December 23, 2005

MIAMI - An alleged serial rapist who escaped from jail using tied-together bedsheets for a rope also had sawlike tools that may have been smuggled in, police said Thursday.

"This is a conspiracy. This was hatched over about three months," Miami police Chief John Timoney told the Associated Press.

Timoney said the escapee, Reynaldo E. Rapalo, 34, and another inmate used tools to escape Tuesday night that apparently were smuggled into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center - "tools you can't purchase from the prison commissary."

Charles J. McRay, director of the Miami-Dade Corrections Department, put two corrections officers on paid administrative leave Thursday: one assigned to patrol the facility's perimeter and one assigned to the maximum-security unit where Rapalo and others accused of sex crimes lived.

McRay answered "absolutely not" when asked by the AP if there were allegations that the officers were involved in the escape.

McRay also ordered all vents at the Knight jail welded shut and that lighting be improved.

Rapalo and Idanio Bravo, 38, climbed through a vent in the 7-foot ceiling of Bravo's sixth-floor cell to reach the roof, after someone pried off the vent's locked door. Bars blocking the opening onto the roof also were cut, apparently by some type of saw, investigators said.

The escape was first discovered by a visitor who noticed the chain of bedsheets hanging down the side of the jail. The visitor told officials he saw an inmate scale down the sheets moments after a security van drove by.

There are indications that someone planned to meet Rapalo after he escaped, Timoney said.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Rapalo is considered armed and dangerous, possibly carrying a small-caliber handgun. He was dressed in black when he escaped, according to the witness, and left his jail uniform behind.

Bravo, who was also awaiting trial on sexual assault charges, broke his ankles when he jumped and was captured outside the jail. He was being questioned.

Rapalo, a native of Honduras, is accused of sexually assaulting seven girls and women, ranging from 11 to 79 years old, in the Shenandoah and Little Havana neighborhoods in 2002 and 2003. Arrested in late 2003, he was awaiting a February trial. Prosecutors have said DNA matches him to the seven rapes as well as four attempted assaults.

Federal, state and local officials have offered a combined $16,000 reward for anyone who can lead them to his recapture.

[Last modified December 23, 2005, 01:31:19]