(SULPHUR, Ky.) -- Search crews sifting through trash at the Valley View Landfill in Trimble County Thursday recovered the body of 24-year-old Michael Talbot Jr. Hours earlier, workers pulled the body of Avery Roland from the landfill. Both men had escaped from the state reformatory in LaGrange Wednesday morning. WAVE 3's Frances Kuo has the latest.
Detectives identified Roland's body shortly before noon Thursday. Kentucky State Trooper Greg Larimore says the prison dumps its trash at the landfill, which is a short drive up Interstate 71 from the prison.
Trooper Larimore said crews were about to wrap up their search late Thursday afternoon when Talbot's body was discovered around 5:30.
"The detectives and employees here at Valley View were wrapping up the search when they stumbled upon the second body and were able to positively identify it," Larimore said.
Larimore says it's still unclear how the bodies got there or how the men died.
"Both bodies will be taken to the state medical examiner's office in Louisville for an autopsy and detectives will backtrack from here to the prison to try to determine exactly what happened to the inmates."
The two inmates were present for Wednesday's 5:30 a.m. EDT head count at the prison, but were reported missing at noon, officials said.
Roland pleaded guilty last fall to charges of unlawful imprisonment, sexual misconduct and assault in a case involving a University of Kentucky student. A day later he was indicted on charges of rape, sodomy and burglary involving a 2003 case in which a 17-year-old Madison County girl was attacked at gunpoint in her home.
Roland was serving four years for the UK attack and was scheduled for a hearing in the Madison County case on July 28.
Talbot, who has family in Louisville, was serving a sentence for wanton endangerment and theft by unlawful taking. He was arrested in 1999 after leading police on a chase from southern Louisville to a cornfield west of Corydon, Ind., and was serving a 10-year sentence.
It was unclear how Roland and Talbot got out of the medium-security prison, which has video cameras, guards and a two-car patrol unit that circles the building 24 hours a day.
Kentucky Department of Corrections Commissioner John Rees says he stands behind his staff and that they followed proper procedures.
"My staff did their job the way they were supposed to. The system worked. I'm saddened by the death of two human beings; the reality is they put themselves at risk. And they're responsible for that."
Rees says this case is still under investigation but he believes the two inmates jumped into a dumpster, then got loaded on to a garbage truck and ended up at the landfill.
Facebook
Twitter