Editor's Note: The June 2000 robbery murders of two men in Austin's Downtown Motel had everything a crime novelist needs: sex, money, violence. When the murderers were caught and about to be tried, the story took on a new twist: the defendants escaped from the Mower County Jail. Now, county officials are waiting for a jail consultant's assessment of incarceration needs, while over-crowding continues necessitating the transport of prisoners to Osage, Iowa. In less than a month, voters will go to the polls to elect, among others, a new sheriff. Jail security and the public safety's are among the issues voters are scrutinizing as the fall campaign winds down. Exactly a year ago, the one person Mower County officials blame for the escape faced his only public scrutinization when his fate as a county employee was decided. Here is that story.

By Lee Bonorden/Austin Daily Herald

Mower County jailer Louis Dion fought the law. But the law won.

The county employee was fired from his job after an arbitrator ruled his firing was justified.

Dion is the former jail detention officer blamed by the Mower County Sheriff's Department administration for the March 25, 2001, escape of three felons accused of first degree murder and robbery.

Gabrielle Skye Holvick, was sentenced this summer, bringing some closure to a criminal case that went from tragic to bizarre.

Mower County Sheriff Barry J. Simonson has told reporters the escape from jail was caused by "operator error."

The operator he referred to was Dion, a Rose Creek man, who became the apparent foil of three felons held in the Mower County Jail, awaiting trial on robbery and murder charges.

The ruling of arbitrator Richard John Miller was made public at the request of the Austin Daily Herald.

The arbitrator found Dion guilty of "serious misconduct" with "potentially dangerous results" and upheld the county's termination of the employee.

To reinforce his ruling that Dion's termination was justified, the arbitrator noted Dion was accused of assaulting a prisoner with Mace in 1999 and suspended from employment for five days.

The Mower County Jail was inspected once again in April 2001 and passed with only a minimum of deficiencies noted.

The Mower County Board of Commissioners has commissioned a needs assessment of a new jail. Only last Friday did the county board's building committee hear from the consultant it hired to review anticipated jail needs for the county. The issue -- security of prisoners, the people who guard them and the public -- remains a topic of conversation as well as debate among law enforcement officers, public safety and other officials and private citizens as the November election approaches. Mower County and city of Austin officials are discussing jail over-crowding issues and waiting for a consultant's assessment of jail needs. Candidates for Mower County Sheriff revisited the issue of jail security, during the campaigns leading up to the September primary.

Here is that issue -- jail security -- as first seen through the arbitrator's ruling and testimony -- under oath -- at the hearing a year ago:

Union appeals firing

Dion's union, Law Enforcement Labor Services Local No. 81, appealed Mower County's termination of the former jailer. Miller conducted a hearing Aug. 16 and 17, 2001, at Riverland Community College.

According to his findings, three Twin Cities men -- referred to as the "Mower County 3" -- were being held in the Mower County Jail on charges of murder and robbery. They were accused of the June 30, 2000 robbery and the murders of two men (a third was wounded). The victims were members of a roofing crew staying at the Downtown Motel.

The Mower County 3 had come to Austin to operate a prostitution ring from the motel.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and Minnesota Attorney General's Gang Strike Force advised the Mower County Sheriff's Department the Mower County 3 were "extremely dangerous." and should be "housed separately."

During their incarceration, the Mower County 3 were responsible for assaults on jailers and other inmates, intimidation and manipulation and earned "dangerous inmate" status, according to the arbitrator's findings.

Jail administrator Robert Roche sent memorandums to his detention officers advising of the prisoners' dangerous inmate status. The inmates also had privileges taken away for their misbehavior while behind bars, according to the arbitrator's findings.

The arbitrator heard evidence the Mower County 3 were kept in different cell blocks at times and sent to the Goodhue County Jail, because of their constant misbehavior in the Mower County Jail.

Roche makes 'deal'

When they were returned to Mower County, the jail administrator sought a new tactic in dealing with the recalcitrant prisoners.

"Roche made a deal with the Mower County 3," arbitrator Miller determined. "If they agreed to behave for 30 days they would be housed together in the maximum security cell block."

The prisoners met those demands and were housed together, according to the arbitrator's report.

On Dec. 11, 2000, the Mower County 3 broke a radio, but retrieved magnets and hid them, according to the arbitrator's investigation.

At this same time, they were also making unrecorded telephone calls, the arbitrator learned.

As the day of their planned escape approached, Miller determined the investigation found the Mower County 3 told Gabrielle Skye Holvick, then-17, to drive her car into the Austin Elks Club parking lot across 1st Street NE from the Austin-Mower County Law Enforcement Center. The jail is located atop the LEC which adjoins the Mower County courthouse.

In taking testimony from witnesses, the arbitrator learned Holvick was instructed to park her car so the prisoners could see her tail lights in the Elks Club parking lot and to blink them at a certain time in order for the prisoners to determine if the car and driver were visible from the cellblock. She complied.

On March 25, 2001, Holvick drove to the parking lot early in the morning and parked her car as the Mower County 3 instructed her to do so.

Dion, Bates alone

Inside the jail, Dion and Mary Bates were the only detention officers on duty. at that time.

While Bates attended to other jail duties, Dion was distributing breakfast to prisoners

One of the Mower County 3 -- housed separate from other inmates, but together in a cellblock -- told Dion he had spilled his breakfast cereal.

According to Bates' testimony, she told Dion "she was suspicious" of the incident.

Despite the warning from Bates, Dion gave the inmate a second bowl of cereal and retrieved a mop, bucket and other cleaning supplies from a closet to clean up the spill.

The arbitrator determined that Dion had been gone from the Mower County 3's cellblock for an hour while he processed a "Huber" or weekend jail time-prisoner, who had arrived to serve a day of his jail sentence.

Next, Dion returned to the Mower County 3's cellblock to distribute medications to one of the three inmates.

While he was gone and Bates was otherwise occupied, the Mower County 3 used the magnets from the broken radio -- stolen three months earlier -- to alter the locks to their individual cells.

When Dion returned to the area, he operated the lock box and allowed himself into the outer area where one of the Mower County 3, Scott Christian, overpowered him and rendered Dion unconscious. The same inmate assaulted the work-release prisoner.

Vernon Neal Powers and David Kenneth Christian followed Scot Perry Christian from the area, according to witnesses' testimony in the arbitrator's report.

According to the arbitrator's findings, as the Mower County 3 were running from the area, they ran into jailer Bates and pummeled her.

Taking keys from the jailers, the three men made their way through outer doors and into the jail office area, where they broke a bar-less window with a golf club left behind by a jailer.

They jumped from the third story window to a parking lot below. Powers and Scot Perry Christian made the jump successfully and ran to the Elks Club parking lot where Holvick waited for them.

David Kenneth Christian, 29, broke a leg in the fall and was left behind.

Powers and Scot Perry Christian, 31, were captured at a safe house in the Twin Cities area about two days later and returned to jail. David Kenneth Christian

was treated at St. Mary's Hospital for a broken leg and also returned to jail. The Christianses are brothers.

The Mower County 3's trial was moved to Dakota County in Hastings, where the men were found guilty and sentenced to life terms in prison: 30 years for each murder count and 86 months for assault. David Kenneth Christian got one 42 year prison sentence for his lesser role in the crimes.

The escape charges against them were dropped.

Mower County conducted its own investigation of the jail escape. Steve Von Wald, director of the Olmsted County Detention Services, conducted that investigation, according to the arbitrator's findings.

'Citizens at risk'

The conclusions drawn were that "citizens were at great risk for harm," because of the escape.

Both investigations concluded that, in Miller's words, "It is ridiculous and insulting to suggest that the escape is the result of staffing, policy or equipment failure. This is not a case of analyzing what could have been done, but rather a case of analyzing what was not done."

In early-September, the county board authorized Simonson to contract with Mitchell County, Iowa for the immediate use of more jail beds at Osage, Iowa, due to over-crowding of prisoners in the Austin jail. The commissioners also allowed the county sheriff to sign a contract to use beds at the new Steele County regional jail due to be constructed and open for use by 2004.

Monday: Dion speaks publicly for the first time since he was fired as a Mower County Jail detention officer and talks about, among other things, a missing memorandum be believes would exonerate him and his willingness to take a lie detector test to verify the veracity of his account.

Lee Bonorden can be contacted at 434-2232 or by mailto:e-mail at lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com