A brazen prison break in Texas put seven dangerous fugitives on the streets—and ended with the Christmas Eve murder of a young father.
Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins was met with a barrage of gunfire as the escapees fled a robbery at a sporting goods store. The fugitives had raided the business for firearms, sleeping bags and camping supplies to help them survive on the run. The case is revisited in the season three premiere of Oxygen’s Prosecuting Evil with Kelly Siegler.
The escape triggered a sweeping manhunt that lasted for weeks. Investigators eventually located the Texas 7 at an RV park in Colorado.
One of the fugitives took his own life before authorities could make an arrest. The remaining escapees were captured, but securing them was only the beginning of the legal battle.
“Catching them was only half the battle,” Siegler said. “The State still had to hold all of these defendants accountable for capital murder.”
Who Were the Texas 7?
The group, quickly labeled the Texas 7 by the media, consisted of seven inmates with extensive and violent criminal histories:
“They were acting as a very close team of criminals, which you don’t find often,” Shook said. “That made them even more dangerous.”
How Did the Texas 7 Escape From Maximum Security Prison?
On Dec. 13, 2000, six members of the group were assigned to the maintenance department at the Connally Unit prison in Kenedy, Texas. That day, they carried out what became the largest prison escape in state history.
The inmates worked alongside civilian supervisors from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Secretly, however, the men were laying the groundwork for their escape, fashioning homemade shivs from pieces of scrap iron.
Once they had weapons, the prisoners ambushed maintenance workers as they returned from lunch. They bound the employees and locked them inside a closet.
“There were at least a dozen hostages taken,” said John Moriarty, chief of special operations for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The inmates put on clothing taken from the employees, entered the tower, overpowered the guard stationed there, tied him up and left him in a bathroom.
The tower housed the prison’s armory, giving the fugitives access to a shotgun, an AR-15 and roughly a dozen handguns. They also stole a prison truck and used it to escape the facility.
“To have that many escape,” Moriarty said, “is a massive, massive security failure.”
During the search of the prison, investigators found a note Murphy had left behind. In it, he accused the prison system of being unjust.
“Today I fired the first shot in the new revolution,” the note stated. “You haven’t heard the last of us yet.”
What Happened to Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins?
Several weeks later, about 300 miles away in Irving, Texas, Misty Simpson—nine months pregnant—was waiting to celebrate Christmas Eve with her fiancé, Michael. He managed a department at Oshman’s sporting goods store.
Misty was waiting in the parking lot while Michael finished closing the store when she saw a suspicious man inside the supposedly closed building. She also noticed employees moving in a single-file line, each with their hands placed on the shoulders of the person ahead. Alarmed, she walked to a pay phone and called 911.
“I just knew that this was off,” she later explained.
Several police units were sent to investigate, but Officer Aubrey Hawkins was the first to reach the store. He drove toward the rear entrance with his emergency lights flashing.
After pulling into the loading dock, Hawkins made his final radio call at 6:30 p.m. saying that he’d arrived at the store.
Moments later, he was killed in a hail of bullets as the Texas 7 were fleeing the store with their stolen goods—including 44 guns, more than $70,000 in cash, camping equipment and winter clothes—in tow.
When Hawkins’ backup arrived a few minutes later, they discovered him lying dead on the ground.
“He had been shot in the car. There were bullet holes through the windshield, gunshots through the driver side door,” recalled Irving Police Sgt. Jeff Spivey, the lead investigator. “We think he’s drug out of the car and run over. What that kind of action demonstrates is just a lack of humanity.”
The 15 hostages inside the store were safely recovered.
On the ground, authorities found a gun that was ultimately traced back to Connally Unit Prison, connecting the crime to the earlier prison break. The witnesses also provided descriptions of their kidnappers to sketch artists that matched the missing men, providing further evidence the crimes were connected.
Were the Texas 7 Ever Caught?
Authorities launched a massive manhunt to try to find the missing prisoners, sharing the story with media outlets and America’s Most Wanted.
In one broadcast, host John Walsh remarked, “We’re tracking down one of the most ruthless gangs of lawbreakers we’ve ever gone after.”
Then on Jan. 18, 2001, authorities got a tip that the group could be hiding out in the Coach Light RV park in Woodland Park, Colorado. A tipster had seen two of the men at a local bible study group.
Once the information was confirmed, federal and Texas agents headed to the area.
Knowing the Texas 7 had police scanners, listened to radio traffic, were heavily armed and had positioned their RV so they could see others coming, the team had to be strategic about how they planned to capture the convicts.
They devised a plan using their own RV to get into the park undetected. But before they could descend on the inmates, they learned that some of the men were planning to flee.
They captured the three men—Rivas, Rodriguez and Garcia—at a convenience store on their way out of town. After taking them into custody, they closed in on the RV.
Though Halprin—who had been shot during the earlier robbery—surrendered, Harper died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The final two men, Murphy and Newbury, were tracked to a hotel in Colorado Springs and gave themselves up after doing an interview with the local media demanding prison reform.
“With all the suspects in custody, there was a collective sigh of relief,” Spivey said. “But there’s still a lot of hard work to do to convict them of capital murder in the murder of Officer Hawkins.”
Prosecutors Spent Years Prosecuting Texas 7
For three years, Shook prosecuted the surviving members of the Texas 7 in one capital murder trial after another.
Prosecutors tried the men under the Texas law of parties, arguing that the men were equally responsible for Hawkins death, regardless of whether they’d fired the fatal shots, because they had acted together.
At the center of each trial was Hawkins’ widow Lori Acosta who emotionally recounted the agony of losing her soul mate and her stepson’s father.
“I just had to describe the evening to the court and the jury,” she told Prosecuting Evil. “That was really hard.”
Ringleader Rivas was the first to go to trial and was convicted and sentenced to death in 2001. Over the next three years, the five other defendants followed suit.
Where Are the Texas 7 Today?
Rodriguez, Rivas, Newbury and Garcia have all been executed.
Halprin’s conviction was overturned in 2024 due to the judge’s antisemitic bias and he is awaiting a new trial.
As of October 2026, Murphy remains on death row.
“As hard as it was, justice for the most part has been served,” Acosta said. “I would say to anyone who has a loved one who’s a first responder, is a police officer, hug them tight, because it can be gone, as in my case, in 15 minutes.”
