Abrams guilty of escape attempt
EPHRATA — A jury delivered guilty verdicts on two charges stemming from a 22-year-old Moses Lake man's attempted escape from the Grant County Jail this summer.
After less than a half hour of deliberation late Friday afternoon, Dustin Gene Abrams, who is awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge, was found guilty of second-degree attempted escape and second-degree malicious mischief.
Sentencing was scheduled for Oct. 31, according to Superior Court Judge John Antosz, who presided over the two-day jury trial.
Correction officers found the damage to Abrams' cell on Aug. 16 after a confidential inmate informant alerted authorities to the escape attempt, according to witness testimony.
During trial, Grant County Prosecutor John Knodell said Abrams' motive for escape was to avoid the upcoming murder trial and that plumbing fixtures fashioned into crude tools were used to chisel halfway through a cinder block wall to the outside of the jail.
Knodell said Abrams "cannibalized" hardware from the jail's plumbing after removing a recessed steel shelf to gain access with his hands to a space adjacent to his cell containing brackets, fixtures and metal implements.
Grant County Sheriff's Office detective Dave Matney testified he found an improvised hammer made of two flat bars that were wrapped in torn pieces of undershirt to apparently muffle the sounds made during digging.
Matney said he seized a torn undershirt from under the bunk mattress during his search of the cell.
He said he found a metal spike that appeared to have been sharpened and used to chisel through the cell's brick and mortar near a narrow window at the back of the cell. The jury was shown the metal spike found in Abrams' cell that appeared to have white shavings on it from the brick and mortar.
During his investigation, the detective found damp toilet tissue filling the four-inch deep hole chiseled into the masonry wall and found white writing paper glued to the wall with toothpaste to cover over evidence of excavation.
Paper was also used to hide the opening created by Abrams' removal of the recessed steel shelf.
Other damage to the cell included removal of a steel electrical junction box from the wall and a damaged light fixture, according to witness testimony.
Regular inspections by corrections officers failed to discover signs of Abrams' attempted escape or damage to the cell.
Altogether, it cost the county nearly $1,500 to return the cell to service, according to testimony.
After being found guilty on both charges Friday, Abrams will now resume preparation for the first-degree murder trial scheduled to begin in January 2006. In that case, Abrams was charged with the alleged shooting death of 79-year-old Michael B. Mallon in 2004 at the victim's isolated home near Willow Lakes.