NATION IN BRIEF : TEXAS : Inmates Thwarted in Escape Attempt

Three killers had cut through a foot-thick jailhouse wall and were climbing down a rope made of braided bedsheets. Then a fellow inmate, possibly angry about being left behind, slit their rope with a razor blade and they tumbled to the ground. One convict suffered broken vertebrae and was hospitalized. The others were treated for rope burns or cuts and returned to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center in Dallas. “We found the razor blade near where they anchored the bedsheet . . . “ sheriff’s spokesman Jim Ewell said. Inmates are allowed to have the blades to shave.