Posted on 10/16/2003 5:10:10 AM PDT by Born Conservative
Selenski was sheltered by relatives
By Edward Lewis and Fred Ney , Citizens' Voice Staff Writers 10/16/2003
Hugo Marcus Selenski stayed at a relative's home near the Eighth Street Bridge, Jenkins Township, for two of the three days during the massive search for the accused double murderer.
Selenski, 30, escaped from the Luzerne County Correctional Facility through a flawed cell window at about 9:40 p.m. Friday. He fled north following railroad tracks along the east bank of the Susquehanna River and was undetected by several rescue boats in the water and canine units searching for him.
The river search was called off at about 3:45 a.m. Saturday due to heavy fog. Selenski also was able to avoid a checkpoint set up at the bridge manned by police and firefighters, who used fire apparatus vehicles to illuminate the area. At about 2:15 a.m. Saturday, Selenski knocked on the door to a relative's home near the bridge and "talked his way inside" after a relative told him to leave, according to several police sources.
Selenski stayed for two days, making his relatives uncomfortable. They pleaded with him to leave, the sources said. While at the home, Selenski acquired $14. Sometime late morning or early afternoon on Monday, Selenski was asked to leave the home and was given a ride to Kingston Township near Frances Slocum State Park.
At about this time, state police at Wyoming received an anonymous telephone call that Selenski was near the park, which is about 1/2 mile from his home at 479 Mount Olivet Road. Authorities rushed to the area where the first confirmed sighting of Selenski was made sometime around 2 p.m.
Several police sources said Selenski was "funneled" to his home, which he was observed entering by covert surveillance units that had been in the area since his escape three days before.
Trooper Tom Kelly said police had gone to the home earlier on Monday and asked Selenski's girlfriend, Christina Strom, who owns the home, for consent to search her residence, but she refused. Capt. Carmen Altavilla, commander at the state police Wyoming barracks, said authorities visited the home several times a day during the three-day search.
Strom told The Associated Press she was eating at a restaurant when Selenski entered the home. She said her only contact with him was a note he left for her saying, "that he loved me." While inside the home, Selenski called his father, Ron Selenski, in Dallas Township, after seeing his father on a local newscast at 6 p.m.
Selenski's attorney, Demetrius Fannick, said his client called him on his cellular telephone at 7:45 p.m. from the Mount Olivet Road home and said he wanted to surrender. Selenski made several requests that he only wanted to surrender to state police Sgt. Richard Krawetz and Kingston Township police Officer Chuck Rauschkolb, that Fannick be present, and that no media be contacted until he was in custody.
Just after 8 p.m., Selenski's sister, Mary Ann Selenski, called the Mount Olivet Road home to check on Strom, but her brother answered. Selenski was in police custody at 8:47 p.m. He was wearing camouflage pants and a purple T-shirt with an emblem "Shenanigans," a restaurant/tavern in North Carolina. When he escaped, Selenski was wearing gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt.
Fannick said Strom was not at the home when Selenski contacted him and when he was taken in to custody. Selenski was charged with escape and possession implements of escape. He was sent to the State Correctional Institution at Dallas, where he was assigned to the restrictive housing unit of J-block. He is in a windowless cell by himself. Additional bars and a surveillance camera were installed on Tuesday.
Selenski and Scott Bolton, 39, escaped from the seventh-floor maximum-security level at LCCF at about 9:40 p.m. Friday. They used a bedsheet and a broom handle to pull in a flawed cell window. The two knotted 12 to 15 bedsheets that they tied to a bunk bed in the cell. Bolton climbed out first followed by Selenski.
Bolton told a prison guard, a police officer and a medical worker that Selenski pushed him as they rappelled 60 feet down the bedsheet rope. Bolton fell approximately 40 feet onto a roof of a lower building sustaining broken bones and internal injuries. He remained in serious condition at the Hershey Medical Center on Wednesday.
Authorities traveled to the Hershey Medical Center Wednesday but were unable to question Bolton. Selenski successfully climbed down the bedsheets to the roof and used a mattress to scale over razor wire. He jumped 15 to 20 feet from the lower roof and fled, initiating a three-day national search until he surrendered.
For the first hour of the search, prison guards and Wilkes-Barre police officers searched the grounds of LCCF for Selenski. State police from the Wyoming and Shickshinny barracks heard chatter on their radios and responded voluntarily at about 10:30 p.m.
It wasn't until 11:30 p.m. Friday that the state police was given jurisdiction of the search. Luzerne County District Attorney David W. Lupas has called for a review of LCCF.
Susan McNaughton, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said a "letter is on its way" from Luzerne County officials asking for a review. McNaughton said a "security review" would take three to four days and include an inspection of LCCF's policies, personnel matters and security issues.
Selenski and Patrick Russin, 33, were charged Oct. 6 for the shooting deaths of Adeiye Ossasis Keiler, 22, and Frank James, 29, on May 14 at Selenski's home. They were allegedly killed for their drugs and money.
Selenski is also a suspect in the murders of missing Tunkhannock area pharmacist Michael Jason Kerkowski, his girlfriend, Tammy Lynn Fassett, and a third unidentified person.
The remains of the five bodies were found on Selenski's property on June 5 and 6. Selenski is also facing trial on robbery, aggravated assault, terroristic threats and recklessly endangering another person, stemming from an alleged incident during which he fired a shot from a .32 caliber handgun at Kerkowski's father, Michael Stanley Kerkowski, and robbed him of $40,000 last year.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Dumb question here...
Where did they get 12 to 15 bedsheets?!
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