2 murderers, rapist escape from Michigan City prison

MICHIGAN CITY | State and local police agencies are looking for three downstate men who escaped Sunday morning from the Indiana State Prison.

Authorities are searching for Lance Battreal, 45, of Rockport, Ind., along with Charles Smith, 48, and Mark Booher, 46, both of New Castle, Ind. They were serving lengthy sentences for rape and murder.

Indiana State Prison, a maximum security institution near the Lake Michigan shore, issued a news release stating staff discovered the three missing from their housing units at midmorning.

Doug Garrison, spokesman for the Indiana Department of Correction, said, "They were last seen during an inmate count earlier in the morning, and by 10 a.m. they were missing."

The staff put the prison on lockdown, searched the immediate neighborhoods around the prison and sent out emergency notices to all those registered with the Indiana Department of Correction ALERT phone notification system.

The prison staff, state police, the LaPorte County Sheriff's Department and other law enforcement agencies also are searching Michigan City and surrounding communities.

Garrison said it is uncertain what direction the escapees were headed. The prison is less than 50 miles from the Michigan and Illinois state lines.

"What we will do now is a typical fugitive investigation where we look at their visitor logs, their phone call logs and talk to anybody they have seen or talked to in recent weeks and months and see what leads we develop there," he said.

Garrison said the three men apparently removed the barred entrance of a tunnel for pipes running beneath prison grounds. "Whether they were cut through or broken off we aren't sure," he said.

Police said Battreal and Smith might recently have cut their hair or shaved their heads.

Prison officials said Battreal was serving a 50-year sentence for rape, confinement and stalking. Smith was serving a 95-year sentence for murder. He has a tattoo of a scorpion on his right hand and a cross with dots on his left hand. Booher was serving an 85-year sentence for murder

All three of the men were projected to be paroled no earlier than 2041.

Police ask anyone with information regarding these convicts to notify their local law enforcement agency. All three escapees are considered dangerous.