Inmate guilty of killing 2 Georgia corrections officers in 2017 prison bus escape

PUTNAM COUNTY, Ga. — A jury has found an inmate guilty in the death of two Georgia corrections officers.

Donnie Rowe is charged with murder in the June 2017 killings of Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue aboard a prison transport bus in Putnam County. He escaped along with inmate Ricky Dubose.

Both men were arrested in Tennessee days later and charged in the slayings.

Rowe’s attorney Adam Levine told a Putnam County jury Thursday there’s no question Rowe played a role in the prison bus escape. Levine said prosecutors failed to prove malice murder because it was a second inmate who fatally shot both guards.

District Attorney Wright Barksdale argued it was Rowe who “opened the gates of hell” by figuring out the inmates could open an unlocked security gate on the bus that separated the guards from the inmates.

Security cameras on the bus recorded the violent escape southeast of Atlanta, while roughly 30 other prisoners witnessed the killings from the back of the bus.

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Rowe’s defense attorneys hoped to spare him a possible death sentence by arguing Rowe didn’t know Dubose would kill the guards.

“Donnie Rowe didn’t shoot, Donnie Rowe did not kill,” Levin told the jury. “Donnie Rowe did not intend to kill. Donnie Rowe is not guilty of malice murder.”

“It was a calculated crime that took both of them to complete,” Barksdale said.

In addition to the security video, jurors got a firsthand look in the courthouse parking lot of the bus where the slayings occurred. They also heard from more than witnesses, from the man whose car the inmates stole right after fleeing the bus to a homeowner in Rutherford County, Tennessee, who grabbed a pistol and called 911 after seeing Rowe and Dubose walking toward his house. He testified that the exhausted fugitives laid down and surrendered.

Rowe did not testify. His defense attorneys played the jury audio and video of Dubose saying he was the one who shot both officers. Then the defense lawyers rested their case.

Following the verdict, Rowe’s trial enters a penalty phase in which the jury will have to decide whether to sentence him to death or to life in prison.

Rowe was already serving a sentence of life without parole for an armed robbery conviction when the guards were slain four years ago.

Dubose will be tried separately for murder and other crimes.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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