Police search for Washington murderer

A convicted murderer from Washington state is still at large after he and another inmate broke out of a Florence, Ariz., prison early Monday morning.

Law-enforcement agencies today are using "every resource available" to track down 37-year-old Roy Townsend, said Detective Walt Hunter of the Florence Police Department.

Hunter said patrol teams, air surveillance crews and K-9 tracking dogs are hunting for Townsend.

"As soon as we found out about [the escape], we started notifying every agency we could to help with this search," said Hunter. "We have to play every angle to get this guy."

Townsend escaped from Florence Correctional Center shortly after 1:30 a.m. Monday, along with 24-year-old Kollin Folsom, a convicted murderer who is also from Washington. Folsom was captured about six hours later in a field three miles away.

While working on the night cleaning crew, the two men tied up a correctional officer and took ladders from the maintenance room, according to the Corrections Corp. of America, which owns and operates the prison.

They used the ladders to get onto the roof, eventually escaping over the prison's fences.

Hunter said the prison is surrounded by desert, and law officials are uncertain if Townsend had arranged plans for transportation.

Townsend, who used to live in Bremerton, was sentenced to 66 years for arson, theft and the murder of an 18-year-old in Mason County more than a decade ago.

Folsom was sentenced to 50 years for killing his girlfriend's father with a machete in Washougal, Clark County, in 1999. Folsom has returned to the prison but is being held in an isolated unit.

Due to overcrowding in Washington state prisons, both Townsend and Folsom had been sent to a prison in Nevada and were later moved to the Arizona facility, officials from the state Department of Corrections said.

Seattle Times researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report