Escapees returned to Michigan prison

12/10/2005

ADRIAN - Two inmates at Gus Harrison Correctional Facility escaped yesterday by hiding in the back of a garbage truck but were arrested less than an hour later, authorities said.

Lyle Harvey Curtis, 37, and William Dean Michels, 47, left the facility in the garbage truck about 7:10 a.m., said Leo Lalone, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections. Curtis broke his leg when the two men jumped from the back of the truck at a nearby landfill. The garbage truck driver called police as the men ran from the landfill about 7:30 a.m.

The inmates abducted a man in his driveway in the area and forced him to drive them to an area strip mall in Blissfield Township, Mr. Lalone said. The man's neighbors spotted the abduction and called authorities. Both men were arrested on arrival at the mall about 8:30 a.m., he said.

Curtis is serving a 40 to 70-year sentence for second-degree murder in St. Clair County; Michels is serving 34 to 60 years for rape in Eaton County.