Last 2 Fugitives Surrender

By Stephen M. Silverman

06/02/1998 at 12:00 AM EDT

Around 3:45 a.m. in Colorado on Wednesday, the last two of seven escaped convicts who had bluffed their way out of a Texas prison on Dec. 13 peacefully surrendered to Colorado Springs police after authorities granted their demands to speak to a local TV station. Patrick Murphy Jr., 39, and Donald Newbury, 38, said to have been heavily armed, aired their grievances about the Texas penal system over the phone from a room at a Holiday Inn to KKTV in Colorado Springs. Murphy, a convicted rapist serving a 50-year sentence, also explained how the fugitives were able to remain on the lam for as long as they did because "we downplayed ourselves and changed our hair color and such." Newbury, an armed robber serving a 99-year sentence, was more rambling in his discourse. The two were part of a group that, until the Wednesday morning finale, had sparked one of the largest manhunts in the history of the Southwest. On Monday, authorities in Woodland Park, Colo., (where the fugitives were believed to have been hiding for three weeks) apprehended four of the escapees. A fifth, unwilling to surrender, shot himself. Residents in the area told reporters that the men did as much as they could to fit in, and one of the men even attended a Bible-reading group. Authorities were tipped off to their presence by those who had seen the convicts featured on last weekend's edition of TV's "America's Most Wanted."