WILKES-BARRE, PA. Suspect in 5 murders escapes

Authorities admitted he could be hundreds of miles away by now.
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. (AP) -- A massive manhunt was under way Saturday for a suspect in the murders of five people who escaped from prison by climbing 60 feet down a rope made of bedsheets, officials said.
Hugo Selenski, jailed since June when the remains of five people were found in his yard, escaped from the seventh story of the Luzerne County Correctional Facility about 9:30 p.m. Friday. Authorities warned the public he was considered dangerous.
The prison in downtown Wilkes-Barre, 100 miles northwest of Philadelphia, sits on the banks of the Susquehanna River, which officials say Selenski may have used to flee.
Deputy Sheriff John Chaumpi said a police bloodhound had picked up Selenski's scent a couple blocks from the jail early Saturday.
Fell during escape
Selenski's partner in the jailbreak, Scott Bolton, fell from the prison's mezzanine level -- about five floors up -- during the descent and suffered broken bones and internal injuries. He was in critical condition at Hershey Medical Center.
"They said he is in bad shape," said State Police Trooper Tom Kelly.
At least 50 officers -- using dogs and river-searching hovercraft -- pursued Selenski. Fire trucks illuminated river bridges during the night. Police helicopters, initially grounded by heavy fog, joined the hunt Saturday.
Authorities, though, had few initial leads. Police were checking to see if cars reported stolen during the night could have been taken by the fugitive. The search was concentrated in northeast Pennsylvania, but Kelly acknowledged Saturday that Selenski could have traveled hundreds of miles.
"What we're looking for right now is friends, family, places he may have frequented," he said.
How he got out
Warden Gene Fischi said Selenski and Bolton, who had only recently been captured after more than two years as a fugitive from a prison work release program, broke a 12-inch-by-18-inch cell window, threw a mattress to the ground, and shimmied down the makeshift rope to a second-story roof. After Bolton's fall, Selenski used the mattress to scale a 10-foot, razor-wire fence, Fischi said.
A green mattress was still draped over the 10-foot high fence Saturday and the knotted sheets were still hanging from a cell window Saturday afternoon.
"They were supposed to be escape-proof," Fischi said of the cells.
Fischi said the inmates used 12 sheets to make the rope; they should have had only four. Officials were checking to see if other inmates had given them sheets.
Selenski's lawyer, Demetrius Fannick, made a public plea for his client to surrender.
"If he turns himself in, I think we could get back to defending this case. I would just urge him to contact me, and urge him to surrender himself immediately, not to do anything stupid," Fannick said.
Spoke with girlfriend
Fannick said both he and state police had spoken with Selenski's girlfriend, Christina Strom. Fannick said Strom had spoken to Selenski by telephone about two hours before the escape, but said that he had not mentioned a plan to flee.
"She is very upset," he said. "She is also asking him to turn himself in."
Fischi said the prison was designed to hold 255 inmates but currently houses 510. Staffing was not an issue in the escape, he said.
Luzerne County District Attorney David Lupas said county and prison officials would have "a lot of explaining to do as to how this could have occurred in this day and age."
Selenski, 30, and an alleged accomplice, Patrick Russin, 33, were charged Monday with murdering two men whose burned bones were among five sets of remains found behind his home in Kingston Township near Wilkes-Barre.
Prosecutors said Frank James and Adeiye Keiler were killed in May as part of a plot to make money by kidnapping and robbing drug dealers.
Selenski, who previously had served about seven years in prison after robbing a bank, was awaiting trial on the murder charges.
No charges have been filed in the deaths of the other three victims.
Michael Kerkowski, a pharmacist linked to illegal drug sales, and his girlfriend, Tammy Lynn Fassett, vanished in May 2002, several days before Kerkowski was to be sentenced for selling prescription pills to addicts. An autopsy determined that they were strangled. A third charred victim, whom officials haven't identified, also was found.