Guard's night of terror is recounted

Prison guard Jeanette Bledsoe was freed without serious injury just after 5 a.m. Tuesday, ending 13 hours of captivity in the Terrell unit of the Texas prison system.

Afterward, she retreated to her tidy brown cottage in the tall piney woods of nearby Onalaska to let sleep and rest begin their healing work while a family spokesman passed along details of the nightlong terror.

"She's got quite a few bruises on her upper torso from wrassling with those individuals," said her ex-husband, Robert Bledsoe, 58. "She's in a position of lying there and crying a lot."

Ms. Bledsoe told her ex-husband that over her sleepless hours as a hostage, the attitude of captors Ponchai Wilkerson, 28, and Howard Guidry, 23, ranged from respectful to abusive. At one point, the two men held up a blanket to give her privacy while she used the toilet in the small barred room where she was held.

At another, Mr. Wilkerson threatened to use a heavy rod to honor the profane urgings of other death row inmates, Mr. Bledsoe said.

"They were yelling, 'Pull her shoes off and smash her toes!' stuff like that," he said. "He was leaning over her, letting her know she was going to be dead."

Ms. Bledsoe's family said prison authorities told them that sharpshooters were poised to shoot the inmates if they harmed her. Ms. Bledsoe was escorting Mr. Guidry back to his cell on death row after his exercise hour when Mr. Wilkerson slipped out of his own cell and helped overpower her. Mr. Wilkerson was armed with a homemade "shank."

Ms. Bledsoe was handcuffed and held with one leg shackled in a small room.

Mr. Bledsoe, a plumbing contractor from Porter, north of Houston, said his ex-wife told him that Mr. Wilkerson, set to be executed in mid-March, acted erratically, at one point trying to stab a negotiator through the bars of the day room.

"She was in there for 12 or 14 hours with a couple of cats who didn't have anything to lose," said Ms. Bledsoe's son John Bledsoe, who gathered with the family in a room off the warden's office during the standoff. "That was scary."

Ms. Bledsoe's gentle manner helped defuse the crisis, her ex-husband reckoned.

"It greatly enhanced her position that she has been a mother and a caring person," he said, recounting how Mr. Wilkerson discussed his 8-year-old son with Ms. Bledsoe. "She said: 'You don't have to go out like this. I'm also a grandmother of a 9-year-old boy.' "

A father's call

The negotiations were helped along when, about 3 a.m., Mr. Wilkerson got a call from his father, who urged him to release the hostage, Mr. Bledsoe said.

As heavily armed SWAT teams stood by, Ms. Bledsoe was released about 5 a.m. after negotiations with prison officials and Texas Ranger Capt. Earl Pearson.

Officials agreed to allow the two inmates to meet with representatives from three organizations against the death penalty. The inmates told prison officials and those death penalty opponents that they were trying to draw attention to difficult living conditions and their call for a moratorium on the death penalty.

Ms. Bledsoe has another connection with the prison, one her ex-husband discusses haltingly: Two of the couple's sons have served time, and the Bledsoes know nearly firsthand the quality-of-life issues behind bars.

"As far as their complaints go, they probably have some valid points," said her ex-husband.

An investigation will be conducted to determine how the incident occurred, said Mac Stringfellow, chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. Equipment, procedures and personnel will be reviewed so that similar situations can be avoided in the future.

Possible punishment

If Mr. Wilkerson is not executed as scheduled, both he and Mr. Guidry face additional criminal charges for hostage taking. But that's about the only sanction they face, said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Larry Todd.

"They're already in administrative segregation," said Mr. Todd. Other than moving them to cells that "cannot be manipulated" with additional officers observing them, "there is no additional administration that we can put on them."

Mr. Wilkerson and Mr. Guidry tried to escape from Texas' death row at the Ellis prison in Huntsville in November 1998 but were captured before fleeing the grounds. The successful escape of conspirator Martin Gurule, who later drowned several miles away, helped prompt authorities to move inmates to the Terrell prison, where security is tighter.

It is that tighter security and the loss of some privileges that led death row inmates to complain about conditions at the Terrell lockup.

Mr. Wilkerson was convicted in November 1990 in the robbery and shooting death of Chung Myong Yi, a Houston jewelry-store clerk. Mr. Guidry, 23, was convicted in Houston in November 1994 as the triggerman in the murder-for-hire of 34-year-old Farah Fratta, wife of former Missouri City police Officer Robert Fratta.

Guard's background

Ms. Bledsoe, who was born in Mississippi, married Mr. Bledsoe in 1960, when she was 17.

The couple had five sons, two of whom have died, and for most of the next 30 years, she was a homemaker. The Bledsoes moved in 1983 from Baytown, outside Houston, to a house with 70 acres in Livingston, about a half-mile from where the prison would be built.

In 1993, the couple divorced. After a time working at Wal-Mart, Ms. Bledsoe joined her son Biff Wayne Bledsoe as a guard at Terrell in 1996. About a year and a half ago, she began working on death row.

Since the split, Ms. Bledsoe has moved about 15 miles from Livingston.

Outside her house is a trampoline for her 16 grandchildren, along with a large wooden sign summarizing the grandmotherly offerings within: " Pie crust cookies. Rocking and cuddling. Stories read. Spoiled rotten."

Her son John said she doesn't act like a granny, recalling she recently received a speeding ticket when caught driving 87 mph in her 2000 bright-red Ford Mustang.

"She acts more like she's 37 than 57," he said.

Mr. Bledsoe praised the work of Texas prison officials and a negotiation team led by a Texas Rangers captain. Upon her release, her ex-husband recalled, Ms. Bledsoe broke down in tears, then composed herself enough to give the warden a parting message.

"She said, 'They may think they've scared me away, but I'll be back.' "

Staff writer Diane Jennings contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Law enforcement officials stood guard outside a gate at the Terrell prison during the hostage standoff Monday night involving two death row inmates.

Associated Press

A file photo shows a typical cell in the death row wing of the Terrell prison in Livingston, where two inmates held a guard hostage.

Jeanette Bledsoe . . . was resting at her home after being freed about 5 a.m. Tuesday.