In June 1976, the escape of seven men from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester made headlines for more than a week. One of the fugitives was Garland Rex Brinlee Jr., convicted of the 1971 bombing of a Bristow kindergarten teacher.
The seven convicts had escaped by cutting through a utility tunnel late on a Saturday evening, June 19, 1976. The inmates’ convictions included murder, armed robbery and car theft.
Two months earlier, Brinlee, once a tavern owner in Tahlequah, had bragged about his expertise in prison plumbing, saying, “After the way I work, I’m too exhausted to run.” This wasn’t his first escape. Brinlee, a self-proclaimed “prison plumber,” had escaped in 1973 after a riot at the prison. During that escape, he was at large for six weeks before being captured.
Robert B. Allen, writer for The Daily Oklahoman, reported on the prison break in June 1976:
Prison officials said the seven convicts, who have been working on the second floor of F Cellhouse repairing pipes for a new boiler have apparently used hacksaws and blowtorches to cut their way through six barred tunnel doors.
For days, multiple law enforcement officers, from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation and sheriff’s deputies, searched for the fugitives. And during that time, headlines in The Daily Oklahoman read: “BRINLEE, SIX OTHERS ESCAPE,” “Governor Orders Massive Search,” “Lack of Oversight in Escape,” “Brinlee Hunt Returns to Navy Depot,” “Manhunt Shifts to Stigler -area. ‘ and ‘Guard vows staff will be fired in aftermath of escape.’
The first prisoner escapee was Delbert Harmon Garmon, who lived eight blocks from the prison in McAlester; and 16 hours later, Leonard Boyle of Chickasha was shot in the leg and captured along with William Morris of Minneapolis. A fourth convict, Robert Nelson, was captured on Wednesday.
Finally, a new headline appeared: “BRINLEE GIVES UP 8-DAY FLIGHT”
On June 27, 1976, eight days after the escape, Brinlee walked into a grocery store near Lake Eufaula, bought a “soda and a bag of chips” and turned himself in to an off-duty prison guard.
Oklahoman staff writer Ed Kelley wrote:
CANADIAN – Bomb killer Rex Brinlee Jr., tired, hungry and covered in flea and tick bites, walked into a small grocery store here Sunday and eventually surrendered to a prison worker he chanced upon.
It was not until July 3 that the last remaining refugees were caught. Cousins William Franklin and Edwin Jones were captured after holding a Stigler family at gunpoint.
Their arrests put an end to the countless hours many had spent rounding up the fugitives and placing them back in prison.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State Penitentiary escapees led officials on manhunt in 1976
