COVINGTON, La. (RNS) An Alabama woman used the spine of a Bible to conceal several hacksaw blades that helped her husband and three other inmates escape a maximum-security prison last month, authorities said Tuesday (July 7).
Claudia Buras was booked Monday into the St. Tammany Parish jail on one count of introducing contraband into a penal institution and one count of assisting escape. Both are felonies, each carrying a maximum sentence of five years behind bars.
Buras, 24, of Irvington, Ala., came to the jail on June 7. During a visit with her ex-husband, murder suspect Eric Buras, she smuggled the hacksaw blades to him by delivering the Bible, Sheriff Jack Strain said.
She had peeled off the Bible’s spine and then glued it back with the 6- to 6 1/2-inch blades inside, investigators said.
After she left, Eric Buras was strip searched, but the Bible was never inspected, Strain said. “Our deputies would not have dismantled the Bible,” the sheriff added.
Eric Buras, 30, is awaiting trial in the killing of a 19-year-old woman whose bound and gagged body was found in the Pearl River.
Three other men accused of involvement in various murders escaped with Buras in the jailbreak. Three of the escapees were caught within hours; a fourth eluded authorities for just over two days.
While Strain said his deputies have “searched high and low for that Bible,” it has not been found. He said jail personnel do not search the jail’s outgoing trash and so it could have easily been thrown out once the hidden blades were removed.
Strain said Bibles and other religious literature were not regularly inspected and, unlike other parcels, did not go through X-ray machines to screen for contraband. He said security has since been tightened.
Prison officials say the inmates removed the caulk around a window and then used the hacksaws to cut away metal bars over the window. Detective Stacey Callender said the inmates likely took turns, switching off so they could work both day and night.