The Daring Escape of The Texas 7
It was 11:20 a.m. when guards and supervisors returned 20 inmates that were assigned to the maintenance department to their housing areas and went to lunch, which Rivas and his cohorts had counted on. Earlier, Rivas and his gang had convinced Patrick Moczygemba, a maintenance supervisor, to allow them to remain behind to wax and seal the maintenance department’s floors. That, they figured correctly, would be effective in keeping most of the other prisoners, as well as the guards, out of the area. They had also convinced Moczygemba to allow them to take their lunch in a “picnic spread” in the maintenance area and use food that they had purchased at the commissary instead of eating with the rest of the prison population in the dining area. It was a privilege afforded the best-behaved inmates, and Moczygemba had agreed to allow them this “luxury.” Since it was not uncommon for this group of prisoners to be assigned special projects in the maintenance department, Moczygemba agreed to stay and watch Rivas, as well as Joseph Garcia, 29, Randy Halprin, 23, Larry Harper, 37, and Donald Newbury, 38, while the other supervisors went to lunch. Mark Burgess, another maintenance supervisor, allowed Patrick Murphy, 39, one of the inmates under his authority, to also remain in the department for lunch to assist the others in completing the project.
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