6 Convicts, Including 3 Murderers, Escape From a Prison in Illinois

LEAD: Six convicts, including three murderers, escaped from the Joliet Correctional Center on February 12, 1990, apparently by cutting through metal bars, the state police said. One was captured later in that day.

Six convicts, including three murderers, escaped from the Joliet Correctional Center early today, apparently by cutting through metal bars, the state police said. One was captured later in the day.

The escapees, who had been separated from other inmates as disciplinary problems, were considered extremely dangerous and may have been armed with cutting tools when they fled, the authorities said.

A search for the men with dogs and an airplane was called off because they apparently separated, said Trooper Thomas Miller of the State Police.

The recaptured man, Tommy Munoz, was seized about 5:30 P.M. at his cousin's Chicago home by law-enforcement officers who had staked it out, said a State Department of Corrections spokesman, Nic Howell. The 22-year-old convict was serving a sentence for narcotics violations and intimidation.

The state police originally reported that the men were discovered missing at 4:55 A.M., but a spokesman for the Department of Corrections later said the discovery was made after an inmate count at 7 A.M.

About 100 corrections officers trained to deal with escapes helped the state police and local law-enforcement officers in the search.

The inmates cut through bars on their cells, broke a window, cut through bars outside the window and climbed a fence to get away, said Mr. Howell.

The prison, which has been overcrowded in recent years, is one of the state's four maximum-security prisons and one of two in Joliet. It houses 1,300 inmates, 500 more than it was built to hold.

The escapees still at large were Daniel Johnson, 24. of Buru, Tenn., imprisoned for murder; James F. Allen, 40, of Chicago, three murders; Dave Rodriguez, 21, of Chicago, murder; Terry W. Colburn, 21, of Bloomington, Ill., burglary, and Ronald Roach, in his 20's, of Wyoming, Ill., burglary.

Based on the NYTimes article