Death penalty sought for escapees in slayings of prison guards on bus

Convicts Donnie Rowe and Ricky Dubose, who allegedly shot their way off a Georgia prison bus in June, were indicted Tuesday in the slayings of the two corrections officers gunned down in the inmates’ brazen escape.

Prosecutors also made official their intention to seek the death penalty against Rowe and Dubose.

Six-count indictments handed up by grand jurors in Putnam County, where the attack happened, formally charge each of the men with murder, escape and other crimes.

Rowe, 43, serving a life sentence for a Bibb County robbery, and Dubose, 24, were on the run more than two days after the June 13 breakout.

Corrections officers Curtis Billue and Christopher Monica were shot and killed in the gunfire, which happened along a highway east of Eatonton, not far from Lake Oconee, as the prison bus Billue and Monica were overseeing was taking inmates to the state prison at Jackson.

As The Telegraph reported soon after the killings, prosecutors will pursue the ultimate penalty in the case. Documents filed Tuesday show that the state cites the slayings of the corrections officers, shot to death while on duty, as aggravating circumstances for seeking capital punishment.

This story was originally published September 19, 2017 at 12:16 PM with the headline "Death penalty sought for escapees in slayings of prison guards on bus."