Trial begins for inmate accused of killing 2 prison guards during escape
PUTNAM COUNTY, Ga. - The trial of an inmate accused of killing two prison guards in Georgia's Putnam County during an escape will begin Thursday.
Jurors will decide whether Ricky Dubose is guilty of multiple counts of murder for the death of corrections officers Curtis Billue and Christopher Monica while aboard a prison transport bus in 2017.
According to investigators, Dubose and Donnie Rowe overpowered and disarmed the guards in June 2017 as 33 inmates were being driven between prisons. Dubose fatally shot both guards, and then they jumped out of the bus and carjacked a driver who happened to pull up behind them on a state Highway 16, authorities said.
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The two inmates then fled in the stolen Honda Civic and drove about 25 miles north to Madison, where they ransacked a home, stealing food and clothes and leaving their prison uniforms behind.
That night, about 12 hours after the home burglary, the pair stole a Ford pickup truck from a rock quarry about 9 miles from the burglarized home when the trail had gone cold.
The fugitive inmates were arrested in Tennessee days later after another home invasions and a chase on Interstate 24. The two men were found by another homeowner while allegedly trying to steal his car. The man held the two at gunpoint with a neighbor he called for help until the sheriff’s department could get there to arrest the fugitives.
Monica and Billue were transfer sergeants at Baldwin State Prison. Monica had been with the Georgia Department of Corrections since October 2009 and Billue since July 2007.
Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said the escaped inmates had been inside a secured area of the bus. He said he didn’t know how they got through the locked cage to overpower the guards.
Protocol is to have two armed corrections officers on the bus, but the officers don’t wear bullet-proof vests during transfers.
Both escapees were serving sentences for armed robbery and other crimes. The Department of Corrections said Rowe, 48, had been serving life without parole since 2002, and Dubose, 29, began a 20-year sentence in 2015.
In 2021, A Putnam County jury convicted Rowe of malice murder and other crimes.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.