Blood Hostages

Precisely at the moment when the 1 p.m. prison whistle sounded, a convict limped into the third-floor library brandishing a .38-cal. pistol. "Get out of here," he shouted at other prisoners, as he ordered them down the ramp from the library. When two guards tried to come up the ramp, the convict fired at them, hitting one in the foot. Both fled. Two other convicts, also carrying pistols, joined the first, and they slammed shut the double glass doors of the library. Trapped within were 15 people -- ten employees of the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville, including seven women, and four prisoners who were not involved in the breakout attempt. Thus began, on July 24, the longest seizure of hostages in the agitated history of U.S. prisons.

As officials, relatives of hostages and newsmen gathered in the yard below the library, the convicts staged a grim spectacle. One by one, like mannequins in a display window, the hostages were periodically pressed against the library's glass doors. In the event of an attack, they would be directly in the line of fire. Their captors, in fact, were no strangers to killing. They were all serving time for murder or assault to murder. Their leader, Fred Gomez Carrasco, 34, who had been injured in a shootout with police, was a lifer suspected of killing dozens of people in Texas and Mexico. Ignacio Cuevas, 42, was serving a 45-year stretch. Rudolfo Dominguez, 27, had been sentenced to 15 years. Death was very much on their minds--then" hostages' death, their own, anybody's. Repeatedly, they threatened to shoot their captives outright, with the pistols they had somehow smuggled into the prison, or blow them up, with bombs fashioned from chemistry sets in the library.

Speaking over the telephone, the terrified hostages begged Huntsville officials to comply with the convicts' demands. At first the requests were sartorial: three tailored suits, three parrs of Nunn-Bush shoes, shirts, ties, cologne and toothbrushes. These were promptly provided. Next, the convicts asked for walkie-talkies and bulletproof helmets. These, too, were delivered. But the helmets were not acceptable. Shouting that he could tell the difference between "a toy" and a genuine helmet, Carrasco fired several shots past Bob Heard, 27, a prison guard who had been designated first of the hostages to die. His voice cracking with emotion, Heard implored over the phone: "Give them whatever they want, and at least we'll know we tried, that we didn't die cooped up hi here like a slaughterhouse--and that's what it will be."

After a grueling 80 hours, the convicts got around to asking for guns and an armored car to use for their getaway. They offered to release nine of the hostages; they would take three women and the Rev. Joseph O'Brien, the prison chaplain, with them in their escape vehicle, and let them go later. Carrasco said that their intention was to flee to Cuba and take their problem to Fidel. "If Castro decides to shoot me, he'll be doing me a favor," said Carrasco. Dominguez declared that he too was prepared to die. Cuevas, who does not speak English, asked a Spanish-speaking newswoman to kiss his wife for him "for the last time."

Acting on the instructions of Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe, prison officials agreed only to provide an armored car. The car was rolled into the prison courtyard and another tense wait began.

The impasse was finally broken Saturday night when the convicts tried to carry out their escape plan--a futile bid for freedom that ended tragically for two of the women hostages and two of the convicts. Moving out of the library and toward the waiting vehicle, the convicts forced eight of the hostages to form a shield around them. They taped law books to portable blackboards as a secondary line of protection. With them inside that barrier were four other hostages, including the two women.

Prison guards and Texas Rangers also had a plan. They suddenly blasted the entire group with water from high pressure hoses, effectively separating the outer hostages from the rest. But a hose ruptured, giving the convicts a chance to open fire with their pistols. The officers returned the fire and a one-sided gun battle broke out.

When it was over, Convicts Carrasco and Dominguez lay dead. Father O'Brien, who had voluntarily joined the group, was wounded, but apparently not seriously. The two women, Elizabeth Beseda, 57, a prison school teacher, and Judy Standley, 43, a librarian, were killed. The two women had volunteered to accompany the convicts as hostages in the armored car--a sacrificial offer that had placed them in that fatal inner circle beside the desperate men.

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