By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Five state correctional officers on duty when two killers escaped from the Cummins Unit last month have been fired, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction said Thursday.

Prison spokesman Dina Tyler also said two other inmates have been linked to the escape and face disciplinary charges. The inmates who assisted Calvin Adams and Jeffrey Grinder to  “acquire everything they needed to escape” have been removed from the prison’s general population, Tyler said.

The names of the employees and the inmates were not released.

Department and state police investigations into the escape continue and charges could be filed, Tyler said.

She said so far no evidence has been found indicating the employees last week — a captain, sergeant and three correctional officers — helped Adams and Grinder escape.

“They were all terminated for not carrying out the duties of their post,” Tyler said. “They had posts at various stages along the route in and out of the institution and those inmates were allowed to leave as fake correctional officers.”

Adams and Grinder walked out of the Cummins Unit on May 29 wearing correctional officers uniform, got into a car left for them in a parking lot and drove off. A videotape showed them entering the prison library wearing inmate uniforms and leaving a few minutes wearing correctional officer uniforms.

They were captured June 1 in New York state after a high-speed car chase near Hornell, NY. Correctional officer uniforms were found in the getaway vehicle, along with Department of Correction identification badges. The uniforms are made at the prison unit.

After the escape, state police arrested three people and accused them of providing the vehicle Adams and Grinder used in their escape.

Deana Davidson, 41, and Ryan McKinney, 46, both of Little Rock, and Michael Stephenson, 50, of Jacksonvillle, have been charged with furnishing an implement for escape, a felony.