WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Search for Broad River escapees gains national attention

Search for Broad River escapees gains national attention

(Columbia) November 3, 2005 - It seems the whole nation is now taking part in the search for Causey and Brewer, at least from their living rooms.

Spin the dial and you'll find the story on Fox NewsChannel. Rita Cosby on MSNBC spoke to Columbia attorney Jack Swerling on her show. Jasper County sheriff Roy Hughes has appeared on CNN, and Thursday morning, it was the number two story at the top of the Today show on NBC.

A report fronted live from South Carolina featured the mother of Johnny Brewer's murder victim, Kelly Lynn Burbage. Also, the Today show's David Gregory interviewed Jack Swerling live at 7:15am.

Swerling not only represented Causey in the early 90s, but was once a victim of his when he invaded Swerling's home and taped up Swerling, his wife and daughter with duct tape.

Gregory asked Swerling how he felt about his former captor being on the run. Swerling said Causey ransacked his house, made periodic threats to him, and eventually stole money from the home.

If and when they're caught, Brewer and Causey will be put into solitary confinement 23 hours a day.

Officers from at least four agencies were searching in Jasper County on Wednesday for the two inmates who escaped from the Broad River Correctional Institution on Tuesday, and they have added a reward for information that helps them find the two men.

Jasper County is on the southern end of the state and is about 120 miles south of the Columbia prison the men escaped from.

The two men were last seen at a Jasper County motel. Investigators hope they are still in the area. They're handing out wanted posters like with information about Brewer and Causey, hoping for any leads. The US Marshal Service is offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to their arrest.

Authorities say 39-year-old Johnny Brewer was serving time for murder and 35-year-old Jimmy Causey was serving time for a home invasion involving prominent Columbia attorney Jack Swerling. The two escaped Tuesday morning.

SLED has recovered the car that the two inmates were seen in, and Tuesday night they questioned Ashley Bostic, who was also seen with the men. They will not say whether they think she was an accomplice or a victim.

In the meantime, the Richland County Sheriff's Department has made arrests in connection with the escape. Steven Goodwin and Kate Tilley are charged with giving assistance to the escapees and not contacting police. Officers say the two gave the men clothes and other items at their home and did not tell police.

News 10 has learned that on Wednesday, both Goodwin and Tilley posted bond.

Jon Ozmint, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, says Causey and Brewer were responsible for serving breakfast to inmates. They were also responsible for cleaning up and taking the trash out.

They were normally up at 5am, before most of the inmates. Right now investigators are looking into the possibility that they escaped in a trash truck, which leaves around 6am.

Policy is to compact the trash, according to Ozmint, "Normally when a dumpster leaves an institution we require it be compacted in case an inmate is in there."

"For some reason we don't believe that happened this morning, so obviously we're checking on that."

Ozmint also says a head count was performed at 7am and all were accounted for. When asked how the escapees were passed over at the head count, Ozmint responds, "People are fallible. People make mistakes. Sometimes people get tired. Sometimes you just don't have enough of them. That's why you'll always have people escape, that's why you've always had them. We don't accept them. We try to learn from them."

The officer whom investigators say did not notice Causey and Brewer missing is still on the job. Ozmint says the officer will be there through the investigation.

Around 8:30 Tuesday morning, investigators say anonymous callers told the Richland County Sheriff's Department they saw Jimmy Causey near Leesburg Road.

The prison learned about Causey's sighting around 9. They confirmed the two men missing about two hours later.

The pair was most recently seen headed toward Sumter on Garners Ferry Road near Chappel Creek Road in Richland County at 12:15pm. They were seen in the company of a white female, later identified as Ashley Bostic, in an Oldsmobile Alero, now located. State Law Enforcement Division Inspector Richard Hunton says he doesn't know if Bostic was with the men by choice or by force.

Tuesday afternoon, deputies surrounded a pair of mobile homes off Kem Court near Leesburg Road. The deputies spoke with a woman who said Bostic is a friend of hers. Lt. Chris Cowan says, "They contacted an acquaintance, who comes and picks them up, who is actually cooperating with us at this point, giving us the information that she then in turn took them to another acquaintance, dropped them off with Ashley Bostic..."

Ozmint is focused on finding them, "I hope we find them very quickly. We're not satisfied they got out; we're disappointed. And I hope they're found, certainly before they hurt anyone else. And I believe they will be."

The latest developments have officials focusing their search efforts on Jasper County.

Both men are considered extremely dangerous, and each had been sentenced to life without parole in separate cases.

A Richland County jury convicted Jimmy Causey of burglary, armed robbery and kidnapping last year. Prosecutors said Causey and co-defendant DaWayne Wilson broke into the home of prominent Columbia attorney Jack Swerling. They taped up Swerling, his wife and daughter, held them at gunpoint and robbed them. Investigators said Causey stole the money to buy drugs.

At the trial, Causey's co-defendant testified against him. DaWayne Wilson said Causey came up with the plan because he was unhappy with how Swerling represented him in a burglary case ten years earlier. It took the jury only 30 minutes to convict Causey. A judge sentenced him to life in prison. Causey had also been charged with robbing an NBSC bank before the Swerling incident. He is serving a life sentence with no chance of parole.

A Lexington County jury convicted Johnny Brewer of the 1994 strangling of his sister in law, Kelly Lynn Burbage, in her kitchen. Prosecutors said Brewer did it to get money to buy drugs. He then set her body and her bedroom on fire.

Brewer, a high school dropout, represented himself at his 1999 trial. He admitted killing Burbage, but said he did it during an argument, and that it was not premeditated. Brewer also denied he killed her for money. Prosecutors asked for the death penalty. The jury decided, instead, to give Brewer a life sentence.

So why wasn't there someone watching the them? Ozmint says, "There's no way you can watch everybody all the time inside a prison. Not at our staffing ratios and not if you double."

Ozmint says the inmate-guard ratio in our state's prisons is more than nine inmates to one guard, the highest in the nation. And he says, funding is the lowest. But he stops short of saying there are system failures that make escapes more likely. "You're going to have escapes in prison. No prison doesn't have escapes."

If and when law enforcement catches Causey and Brewer, the two will go back to Broad River Correctional where they were serving life. And like the death row inmates, Causey and Brewer will go into solitary confinement.

They will be in a cell by themselves for 23 hours a day. That will go on until prison officials determine the men are no longer an escape threat.

Causey is white, six feet, two inches tall and weighs 179 pounds. He has blue eyes and brown hair and has a scar on the left side of his chin. Causey was last seen in a white shirt with blue lettering spelling "Abercrombie & Fitch," blue jeans, and black boots issued by the Corrections Department.

Brewer is white, five feet, eight inches tall and weighs 136 pounds. He has hazel eyes and brown hair. Brewer was wearing a dark blue pullover, blue jeans and the same kind of Corrections Department boots.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of these individuals is asked to call 911, the Richland County Sheriff's Department at 803-576-3000 or the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division at 737-9000.

Reported by Jack Kuenzie & Jennifer Miskewicz

Updated 12:13pm by Bryce Mursch