Killers who escaped Texas jail caught in Oklahoma

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Posted 8:33AM on Thursday, February 7, 2002

ARDMORE, Okla. - Two convicted murderers who broke out of a Texas jail surrendered peacefully early Thursday after seizing a hostage at a southern Oklahoma gas station and holding authorities at bay for several hours. Two other fugitives who escaped with them last month were also captured. The hostage-takers, Curtis Gambill and Joshua Bagwell, gave up at 4:30 a.m., FBI Special Agent Richard Marquise said. The surrender was the result of "a very skillful agent developing a rapport" with the fugitives, Marquise said. He said the only request by the fugitives was to talk to relatives by telephone. The hostage, store owner George West, 70, emerged unharmed. Authorities arrested the other escaped inmates, Chrystal Gale Soto and Charles Jordan, outside the store at 9:50 p.m. while Jordan was using a pay phone, said Kym Koch, a spokeswoman with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Soto and Jordan are both murder suspects. FBI spokesman Gary Johnson said a Carter County sheriff's deputy and an FBI agent went to the gas station after authorities received a tip that the fugitives might be there. The FBI agent recognized Jordan and arrested him. Soto came out of the store and gave up, but Gambill and Bagwell refused to leave. The four had fled the Montague County Jail in northern Texas on Jan. 28. They used a makeshift knife to overpower a guard and escape in her sport utility vehicle. Their escape set off a massive manhunt across the southern Plains, with authorities suspecting that Oklahoma might be their destination because Gambill and Bagwell were raised in the state and know the area. In recent days, they had been linked to two burglaries and theft of a flatbed truck in southern Oklahoma. A .22-caliber rifle was taken in one of the burglaries. The stolen truck was found in Lake Murray State Park on Saturday, about a mile from the hostage standoff took place. The fugitives apparently had been hiding in the park for the last several days, FBI agent Sam Macaluso said. Gambill, 23, of Terral, and Bagwell, 24, of Waurika, were convicted in the 1996 slaying of Heather Rose Rich, a 16-year-old cheerleader from Waurika. Each was sentenced to life in prison and had recently been returned to Montague for further proceedings. Gambill, Bagwell and the victim's former boyfriend said they feared Rich would accuse them of rape after a night of drinking and sex. They took Rich, who had passed out, to a remote creek bridge in Montague County and shot her repeatedly in the head and back. Her body was found a week later. Jordan, 30, and Soto, 22, of Bowie, Texas, were jailed on charges stemming from the deaths of an elderly couple.