The Omaha World-Herald
Escaped convict Michael McGuire was recorded on a surveillance camera at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, authorities said Thursday.
The video shows that Michael McGuire had a change of clothes by Tuesday evening.
The camera at UNO showed that McGuire used a pay phone Tuesday inside the Milo Bail Student Center, said Deb Collins, spokeswoman for the Nebraska State Patrol.
McGuire was recorded from 6:34 p.m. to 6:45 p.m., Collins said.
The State Patrol released the footage to show the public that McGuire was wearing new clothing, she said.
McGuire, 54, a convicted rapist and kidnapper, has been free since Tuesday morning, when he overpowered two prison guards at a hospital in Tecumseh, Neb., and took over a prison van.
At UNO, the camera showed McGuire wearing black pants, a white shirt, a dark-colored jacket and a white or light-colored hat. He previously was wearing a khaki shirt, khaki pants and a brown coat.
McGuire was alone at the pay phone, although he may have been with another person earlier.
“There had been sightings of him earlier in the day with a black male,” Collins said, “but we can’t confirm that.”
The State Patrol does not know who McGuire was calling, she said.
McGuire’s attorney, James Martin Davis, has said McGuire called Davis’s home Tuesday night to leave directions on where the two guards, whom he had handcuffed to a tree, could be found.
McGuire was at the Johnson County Hospital to undergo a CT procedure. After using a bathroom, he emerged with a handgun that was planted there earlier.
Steve King, a spokesman for the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, said early reports by authorities that a second handgun was recovered at the hospital were wrong.
King said a subsequent search of the hospital did not turn up a second handgun.
McGuire did not know the exact time of his hospital appointment, he said. Inmates don’t find out about their medical appointments until they are led out of their cells to go there.
King said the only thing McGuire knew was that at some point in the future he was going to undergo a CT scan.
“He knew he had an appointment some time in the next month, and he may have had somebody plant the gun there on that eventuality,” King said.
Only staff members at the hospital and prison staff would have had advance knowlege of the exact time of the appointment, he said.
However, King considered it unlikely that someone inside Tecumseh State Prison may have helped McGuire escape.
“We’re interviewing our own staff and looking at things internally, but we have no indication that somebody on our own staff may have been involved,” he said.
King said McGuire told the prison guards that someone on the outside planted the weapon at the hospital, but he didn’t mention specifically who helped him or how.
McGuire, who had been kept in solitary confinement, had the same visitation and telephone privileges as other Tecumseh inmates, King said. A list of the people allowed to visit McGuire was given to the State Patrol, as were phone records.
“We’re looking at the telephone logs, all the visitors, everybody he’s had contact with,” King said.
McGuire’s legs were shackled and his hands cuffed when he arrived at the hospital, he said, but the shackles and cuffs were removed for the CT scan. Before the procedure, McGuire used the restroom, and the guards were inside watching him.
The shackles and handcuffs were put back on McGuire after the scan.
King said McGuire, who had some water as part of the procedure, asked again to use the bathroom. Guards released one restraint on a hand before he used the restroom again.
This time, the bathroom door was left partially open. King said that when the guards went inside, McGuire pulled a gun and ordered them to lie down. McGuire then had the guards get back up, and he led them out of the hospital at gunpoint.
“He walked between the correctional officers and made it look as if he was still in restraints as he held a pistol to one of them,” King said.
The officers, whose names have not been released, said McGuire had his arms crossed in front of him and had the gun hidden in one hand, King said.
Diane Newman, administrator at the hospital, said McGuire and the guards had to walk down a hallway to the emergency door, where prison patients enter and exit. Nobody works near that door, she said, and other patients use a separate entrance.
Once outside, McGuire ordered the guards to get into the van’s caged back end, told them to put on restraints and drove away, King said.