Jury Acquits Ypsilanti Township Inmate Of Escape

Jury acquits Ypsilanti Township inmate of

Steven Stamper’s defense was that he feared for his life when he joined the escape attempt.

By SUSAN OPPAT

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

ADRIAN - A 21-year-old former Ypsilanti Township man serving a life sentence in the 1986 slaying of a 13-year-old girl has been acquitted in Lenawee County Circuit Court on a prison escape charge.

Steven Stamper, currently held in segregation at the Southern Michigan Prison in Jackson on a second-degree murder conviction, was acquitted on four charges stemming from the Feb. 24 escape from the Gus Harrison Regional Correctional Facility near Adrian.

Another of the five escapees, serving 30-50 years for bank robbery and possession of a gun in the commission of a felony, also was acquitted on all escape charges.

Three other inmates on trial before the same jury were convicted of escape after less than 90 minutes of jury deliberations Thursday night.

Stamper was convicted in 1988 of aiding and abetting an Ypsilanti Township 16-year-old, Christopher Mahacek, in the slaying of Mary Anne Hulbert in December 1986.

Lenawee County Prosecutor Irving Shaw was unavailable for comment, but defense attorney John T. Glaser said the jury obviously believed Stamper’s claim that he was under duress and in fear for his life when he decided on the spur of the moment to join an escape in progress.

“There is a statute in Michigan which allows you to claim the defense of duress - it’s used1 a lot in prison escape cases,” said Glaser.

Glaser said Stamper told him he joined the other escapees [because] he was afraid he would be murdered in prison by members of a religious sect in the prison.

He said Stamper complained in July 1991 that a member of the sect had stolen his athletic shoes. Within the hour, Glaser said, Stamper was so severely beaten that he was hospitalized with a dislocated shoulder and other injuries.

He said Stamper received a series of escalating threats several times a week in the following months. He was never beaten again, Glaser said, but was warned in the week before the escape that he would be killed or beaten when double-bunking went into effect at the prison.

The day after a double-bunk was installed in Stamper’s cell, according to Glaser, Stamper saw other inmates bash a workman who had installed the double-bunks and steal his truck.

“When he saw it was time to go, he jumped in the truck and went,” Glaser said.

The truck rammed a locked gate to the prison, then rear-ended another vehicle about a mile from the prison, forcing all five escapees to flee on foot. All were recaptured a short time later.

Stamper and the other acquitted escapee, whom Glaser said also claimed duress because of sexual assaults inside the prison, were found a short time after the escape hiding under a bus in a junkyard near the prison.