MADISON, Ga. — A three-day search for two inmates sought in the killing of their guards on a prison bus in Georgia expanded Thursday, with a sheriff saying the fugitives could be halfway across the country by now.
"We need the eyes and ears really of anybody in this country to be on the lookout," Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills said.
The FBI is now promoting a reward for information leading to the arrest of Donnie Rowe and Ricky Dubose that has risen to $130,000 after contributions from more law enforcement agencies.
"It's not just because of the crime, it's because the public is in grave danger," Sills said. "These are dangerous, seriously dangerous, vicious hoodlums that need to be apprehended."
Authorities said the last sign of the two fugitives remains the theft of a 2008 white Ford F-250 pickup with the Georgia tag BCX-5372 from a rock quarry. Sills said it was stolen late Tuesday night, roughly 12 hours after they ransacked a house 9 miles away to gather food and change from their prison uniforms.
Sills said the Honda Civic they carjacked at the killing scene was hidden in some woods, and they walked to the quarry from there.
"They're doing like most escapees do. They're stealing cars. We know they did a burglary. We know they took food there. We know of no great amount of money, but there may have been some money there the victim didn't know about," the sheriff said.
The FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are all involved, as well as law enforcement officers all over Georgia.
"It has become a nationwide search," said Special Agent David LeValley, who runs the FBI office in Atlanta.
Sills wouldn't comment on whether the other 31 inmates left locked inside the bus with the slain guards' bodies revealed how the escapees managed to get out of the secure compartment. Department of Corrections Commissioner Greg Dozier wouldn't comment on that part of the investigation either. Both said their immediate focus is on finding the escaped inmates.
Sills said there's no visible evidence — an apparent reference to video from a security camera on the bus — showing that other inmates participated. And he praised the other inmates for aiding the initial search.
"Yes, they have been interviewed," Sills said. "They provided the most vital information at the most crucial time."
Authorities said the two inmates overpowered and killed Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue early Tuesday on a bus that should have been secured as it carried inmates between prisons. The pair then carjacked a driver who pulled up behind the bus and fled in his Honda Civic along state Highway 16 in Putnam County, southeast of Atlanta.
Signs of the fugitives turned up hours later and 25 miles north, in Madison, where authorities found the house ransacked and, hours later, the pickup stolen. By then, the trail had gone cold.