Accused killers of corrections officers face judge in Putnam County early Wednesday

Two convicts accused of killing a pair of Georgia corrections officers on a prison bus as the inmates escaped last week and fled to Tennessee are expected to go before a judge back in Georgia at a first-appearance hearing in Eatonton at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The June 13 shooting deaths of officers Curtis Billue and Christopher Monica led to a massive manhunt that ended when the fugitives surrendered at a house some 50 miles south of Nashville last Thursday, two days after their escape.

Escapees Ricky Dubose and Donnie Rowe, who was serving life without parole for a string of robberies and other crimes, including a 2001 holdup at a Macon Super 8 motel, have been held at the county jail in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, since their arrests.

Questions remain about how the two were able to escape what amounts to a cage on the prison bus. The bus was ferrying 33 inmates to the prison in Jackson. The killings happened about 6:45 a.m. as the bus was passing below Lake Oconee east of Eatonton after making a stop at the prison near Sparta.

Afterward, Rowe and Dubose allegedly commandeered a passerby's Honda Civic and vanished. Another passerby called 911, but it was after 7 a.m. before the first sheriff's deputy arrived. Other prisoners on the bus apparently stayed put after the shooting.

Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills, the lead investigator in the case, has said footage from a security camera on the bus showed the two escapees, almost in a flash, dart through a metal door that separated the inmates from the prisoners. Whether it was locked was unclear.

Sills said the escapees then attacked and shot the corrections officers, one of whom was driving, as the bus came to a stop in the middle of Ga. 16 about 10 miles outside Eatonton.

Putnam warrants for Rowe and Dubose show that the men are charged with murder, escape and carjacking.

Before they were jailed on Thursday, the two allegedly held a husband and wife hostage for more than two hours at a farmhouse on the south side of Shelbyville, Tennessee, not far from where Rowe used to live.

This story was originally published June 20, 2017 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Accused killers of corrections officers face judge in Putnam County early Wednesday."