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His escape not so great

The inmate worked at his plan for days and managed to get out of jail. But then he changed the plan, leading to his capture.

By THOMAS LAKE
Published November 18, 2006

LAND O'LAKES -- In the tent by the jail, when the cutting was done, a determined plumber named Rory McGrory wriggled through a hole into the mild night. He clutched a metal can lid and a black 60-gallon garbage bag.

He got in the bag, rolled to the fence and started digging. The metal cut his hands. He lay in a fetal position with only his hands sticking out as the hole got deeper. He went under headfirst, stood up.

And ran.

"I ran," he said, "like the devil himself was chasing me."

McGrory, the first inmate in five years to escape from the Land O'Lakes jail, was captured in an abandoned Winnebago in New Port Richey on Thursday morning. In a jailhouse interview with the Times that afternoon, he told the story of his brief brush with freedom.

McGrory is 43, thin and handsome, with sorrow in his light-brown eyes. He is a career criminal. His most recent charges include burglary, grand theft and fleeing to elude. Unwilling to serve a long prison sentence, he decided he had two choices: death or escape.

He chose escape. He began planning almost immediately after his Oct. 20 arrest. In a move that has become controversial, officials granted him trusty status, giving him access to the kitchen and housing him in a minimum-security canvas tent.

He sifted the can lid out of the kitchen garbage, tucked it in his underwear and smuggled it back to the tent last week. Over the course of several days, he worked on the hole in the tent wall, hidden in a corner of the bathroom. He finished on Monday night.

Sheriff's spokesmen have reported that McGrory escaped some time between bed checks at 11 p.m. Monday and 6 a.m. Tuesday, but McGrory said he left hours before 11. He wouldn't say exactly when.

Once outside the fence, he hustled for the woods. Years of rigorous exercise in prison had prepared him for this.

He thought he was headed south. When he had to cross swamps, he put his white kitchen uniform and boat shoes in the garbage bag and waded through, naked.

He came out on State Road 52, having gone north by mistake, wearing boxers and a white T-shirt. He wanted to go to his mother's house in New Port Richey, where he thought he could find clothes and a car. From there he had two ideas: either drive up to Connecticut, where he has friends; or go to the Port of Tampa and ride a banana boat to Costa Rica.

He stuck out his thumb. A man in a beat-up pickup truck stopped.

"I just got out of jail," he said. It was the truth. The man took him to U.S. 19 and gave him $5.

McGrory thought the manhunt had already started, so he decided to wait a few days to go to his mother's. He slept on top of a box truck Monday night, took a bus to Tarpon Springs the next morning, and stopped at a charity for food and a pair of shorts and a curly blond wig.

When he saw his own picture on a department store TV, he couldn't believe it.

"Ted Bundy didn't get this kind of coverage," he said. He slept somewhere in Tarpon Springs on Wednesday night - he wouldn't say where - and took a bus back to New Port Richey on Thursday morning.

On his way to his mother's, he stopped to see some old friends. He says a friend's roommate is the one who called the police. When he got to his mother's house on Candlelight Court, the car was gone.

He ran through the woods for several hours, chased by dogs and helicopters. He finally hid in a Winnebago in the parking lot of the old Italian-American Club on Washington Street. That's where the deputies caught him about 11 a.m.

He was held without bail at the Land O'Lakes jail Thursday. The escape charge could add 15 years to his prison sentence. He wore a red jumpsuit, the kind reserved for high-risk inmates.

There was a chain around his waist. His hands were bound.

He wished he had gone straight to his mother's to get the car.

"Had I known I had till 5 the next morning," he said, "I'd be in Connecticut."

His voice broke and his eyes watered. His lips quivered. He said he wanted to die, or perhaps escape again.

He was back where he started. Only worse.

Thomas Lake can be reached at tlake@sptimes.com or 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6245.

[Last modified November 17, 2006, 22:28:06]