This undated photo provided by the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General shows Donald Kohut, 34, of Flemington, N.J. Kohut and Justin Heflin, a former correctional officer at the Tennessee Prison for Women, have been arrested in a plot to break out Tennessee’s lone female death row inmate. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Wednesday, March 21, 2012, that there was no imminent danger of an escape by the inmate, Christa Gail Pike.NASHVILLE – Two men, including a former correctional officer, planned to make a copy of a prison key in a plot to free Tennessee’s only female death row inmate, according to an indictment.
Donald Joseph Kohut and Justin Wesley Heflin were arrested this week in what authorities say was a foiled plot to break out Christa Gail Pike, who has been on death row since 1996 for the slaying of a Knoxville Job Corps student.
The unsealed indictment says in January, Kohut and Heflin, who worked as a guard at the Tennessee Prison for Women where the 36-year-old Pike is held, arranged to trace a prison key and have it copied to be used in the escape attempt.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has said an escape was not imminent and investigators found out about the plot early.
Tennessee Department of Correction spokeswoman Cindy Dunning declined to answer questions about whether any keys had been copied.