Traffic Stop Foils Elaborate Escape

TANNERSVILLE, N. Y. — A convicted murderer escaped from a state prison Monday, only to be recaptured when state police stopped the car he stole because it had no license plates.

Officials said that Fred Diaz, 24, was recaptured before guards at the maximum-security Coxsackie state prison realized that it was not Diaz they saw in his cell, but “a very sophisticated dummy.”

Diaz somehow removed two bars from his cell window, penetrated steel mesh beyond that and used bedsheets to lower himself into the prison grounds. He scaled an 8-foot, razor-topped inner fence, cutting himself badly, then shimmied up a light pole next to a 16-foot outer fence and leaped to freedom, officials said.