A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.
Myron Lance and Walter Kelbach, two of the state’s most notorious and deadliest inmates, spent many years at the Utah State Prison following their five-day crime spree that left six people dead in December 1966.
For one weekend in 1968, though, Utah was gripped with concern as the pair and seven other maximum security prisoners escaped from the Utah State Prison.
Thankfully, they were all quickly captured.
Kelbach, Lance and Delbert Garrett were captured on Nov. 16, 1968, just hours after making a getaway from the new maximum security facility in Draper. The group reportedly escaped through ventilator tunnels and jumped the fence.
The Deseret News reported the escape and captures on the weekend of Nov. 16-18.
Kelbach, Lance and Garrett were apprehended in Burley, Idaho, when a store owner told the men to move on, then called police. They were apprehended a few minutes later. Escapees Jon Ranson Ridge, James Ray Gill and Richard Davis Gill were found in a culvert near the prison.