Riots, a bomb and a helicopter escape: 6 big stories from SC prisons

From a notorious serial killer blowing up a death row inmate to a riot that killed seven inmates and injured more than 20 others, incidents at South Carolina prisons have made their share of headlines over the years.

Here are a few of the bigger stories to come out of S.C. corrections facilities:

7 killed in Lee Correctional riot

A fight over cellphones and territory prompted an hourslong riot that killed seven inmates and injured more than 20 others at Lee Correctional Institution in Bishopville in April 2018.

The deadly ordeal began in one of the maximum-security prison's dormitories the evening of April 15, officials said. A short time later, fights broke out in two more dorms.

The prison — South Carolina's largest — was not secure until around 3 a.m. on April 16, officials said. Most of the inmates who were killed died from stabbing or slashing wounds from "shanks," the coroner's office said.

Videos apparently taken by inmates showed the bloody aftermath of the riot, with some inmates seen wandering the cellblock with knives in their hands.

Inmate's (second) escape from a max-security prison

Using a makeshift dummy to fool officers into thinking he was in his bed worked so well in Jimmy Causey's 2005 escape from a South Carolina prison that he used it to escape from another maximum-security prison in 2017.

Causey first escaped from Broad River Correctional Institution in 2005 when he and another inmate used dummies made of clothes and toilet paper to mislead guards. They hid in a dumpster that was carried away by a trash truck. Both men were caught two days later at a motel in Ridgeland after a pizza delivery woman recognized them and called police.

On July 5, 2017, Causey — serving a life sentence for the 2002 home invasion of Columbia attorney Jack Swerling and his family — used a makeshift dummy to dupe officers into thinking he was still in his bed at Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville, officials said. Then, he used contraband wire cutters to slice through four fences at the Lowcountry prison and gain freedom.

Corrections officials said a drone likely dropped the wire cutters inside the prison fence for Causey.

The escape wasn't realized for 18 hours. Causey was captured two days later at a motel in Austin, Texas, with $47,000 cash and two guns.

4 inmates lured into a cell, strangled

Two inmates serving life sentences for murder wanted to die, so they lured four prisoners — one at a time — into a cell and killed them in hopes of getting the death penalty.

The killings happened just after breakfast on April 7, 2017, at Kirkland Correctional Institution, a maximum-security facility on Broad River Road in Columbia.

Denver Simmons and Jacob Philip, both of whom are serving life sentences for killing women and children, lured each of the four inmates into a cell. The Richland County Coroner's Office said all four inmates were strangled using a broomstick, and multiple sources told The State the four were killed with an electrical cord tightened around the broomstick. Arrest warrants say one of the dead inmates also was stabbed with the broken broomstick.

Simmons later told The Associated Press that he and Philip had hoped killing the four inmates would land them on death row. Each is charged with four counts of murder. There's been no word whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty in their cases.

Portions of some of the attacks were captured on surveillance video.

Hijacked helicopter used in prison escape

A woman hijacked a helicopter and used it to help her boyfriend and two other inmates escape from a Greenville County prison in 1985.

Joyce Bailey Mattox, an unemployed Spartanburg-area woman, rented a helicopter and forced the pilot at gunpoint to land inside the fence at Perry Correctional Institution on Dec. 19, 1985, according to previous reports. The chopper took off under a shower of gunfire from officers and landed again in a hayfield a few miles away.

A guard was shot in the mouth by one of the prisoners as the helicopter took off again, according to reports. He survived, and the pilot later was released unharmed.

Mattox and the three inmates were captured four days later at a welcome center on Interstate 95 in Georgia near the Florida state line, according to reports at the time. She was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison for charges related to the escape, and was released in 2004, prison records show.

Two of the inmates — Jesse Glenn Smith and William Douglas Ballew — were sentenced to 60 years each on federal charges for the escape, according to reports. The third inmate, James Rodney Leonard, was sentenced to 10 years. Those sentences ran concurrent to sentences for state charges.

A 1989 TV movie, "The Outside Woman," was based on the escape.

'Pee Wee' Gaskins blows up inmate in revenge

Donald "Pee Wee" Gaskins was serving multiple life sentences for nine killings. But it was his murder of another murderer that landed him on South Carolina's death row.

Gaskins was serving 10 life sentences at Central Correctional Institution in Columbia when he carried out a contract, revenge killing of death row inmate Rudolph Tyner in 1982. Tyner was awaiting execution for the 1978 killings of a couple during a robbery at their Murrells Inlet store.

The couple's adult son, Tony Cimo, arranged for Gaskins to carry out the crime.

Gaskins blew up Tyner by giving him a radio packed with plastic explosives. It exploded when Tyner put it to his ear. Gaskins was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death, and was executed by electric chair in September 1991.

Cimo was sentenced to eight years in prison for arranging the murder and was released after serving less than three years. A TV movie was based on the revenge killing.

Prisons chief defuses three-day riot that injured 17

Bill Leeke became a legend after he walked — alone and unarmed — onto a baseball field at a South Carolina prison to meet with 1,300 inmates who had been rioting for three days.

Eleven inmates and six guards were injured during three days of rioting at Central Correctional Institution in October 1968, which was prompted by inmate complaints over the prison's infamous Cellblock One, the guards and the food.

"Some of your requests seem reasonable and will be looked into," Leeke, who had been on the job for just a few months, said through a bullhorn while standing on wooden bleachers surrounded by inmates.

Leeke served as director of corrections for 20 years, during which he established a psychiatric center and was the first to make psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers available to inmates, according to previous reports. The General Assembly later named the S.C. Department of Corrections' headquarters on Broad River Road the William D. Leeke Building.

This story was originally published April 19, 2018 at 11:55 AM with the headline "Riots, a bomb and a helicopter escape: 6 big stories from SC prisons."