Speaker 1: I walk straight line.
Speaker 2: Shackle change, Oh someome gird, it's calling my name.
Speaker 1: There is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice
as the hill stream game Wrangle three.
Speaker 3: Come here, be by me or die inside these walls,
inside the wild and went the walk as I'm Bloody.
Speaker 4: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Angla, a podcast
one hundred and forty two years in the making, the
complete story of America's bloodiest prison. I'm Jim Chapman, and
today I'm bringing you another episode from the High Bristophilia
series and the subject of today's episode is Lynette Barnett, who,
on August twenty ninth of nineteen ninety nine, while I
employed as a prison guard at Crossroads Correctional Center, not
only assisted in the escape, but went on the run
with a convicted murderer by the name of Terry Banks.
So that's what we're going to be talking about today.
Let's get right into it, and I'm going to give
you a little bit of background on Lynette Barnette. She
was twenty eight years old when everything I'm about to
tell you about went down, and she had kind of
a different path than most early on in life. She
met her husband, David, when she was sixteen years old
and working at a grocery store as a cashier. And
at that time David, he was working in the produce
department of that same store. He was five years older
than Lynette at twenty one years old, and as I said,
she was sixteen at the time, and they fell in
love just a year later at seventeen. So David was
pretty controlling of Lynette after they married, and Lynette wanted
to return to school and graduate, but David was worried
she would meet someone else and he just wouldn't let
her do it. So she decided to get her ged instead,
and that's just what she did, and it's kind of
off with life. David gets a job as a case
worker at what was known as Western Missouri Correctional Center,
and Lynette, she worked several different jobs. She's trying to
find her footing in life, right, She's much younger than David,
So she takes a job at a shoe factory. She
becomes a nursing aide and a nursing home and eventually
a job opportunity comes up at Crossroad Correctional Facility as
a correctional officer Now, this job intrigued Lynette. She thought
it would help strengthen her marriage because of her husban David,
as well as her father in law, both worked in
corrections and her employment was close in proximity to David's.
Crossroad Correctional Center and Western Missouri Correctional Center were actually
just next door to each other. So she certainly thought
this new job would help. But the marriage stayed bad
for these two, and it really was bad the whole time. Lynette,
as a matter of fact, leaves the marriage several times
throughout the ten years that were married, but each time
her husband would say he was going to change, et cetera,
and she would go back to him. However, in nineteen
ninety nine, the relationship reached a breaking point when Lynette
caught David cheating on her and she left the marriage. Now,
for the record, David, he denies any cheating allegations, and
he claims it was Lynette who was the one that
was controlling. But she there's a lot of family that
backs up her claim. And so it's the single life
for Lynette, and life at this time was really bad
for her. She ended up moving in to her mother's
boyfriend's home, she was sleeping in a plane utility basement
and stopped making her car payments all together. She was struggling,
and it's at this point in her life she starts
kind of opening up on her relationship while working at
the correctional center, and specifically to a particular inmate by
the name of Terry Banks. So let's talk about Terry
real quick. He had a pretty rough childhood himself. His dad, Charlie,
was in and out of jail constantly, and they moved.
Speaker 5: Around a lot.
Speaker 4: In nineteen ninety two, they landed in Joplin, Missouri, where
Terry's brother lived, and it was at this point that Terry,
who was nineteen, fell for a seventeen year old by
the name of Sheena Eastburn. Now Sheena, although young, had
already been married and divorced, and this girl totally hated
her ex husband, who she described as a drug dealing loser,
and she made claims to Terry that he had also
raped her, and Terry, along with Sheena and their friend
Matt Myers, they concoct a plan to rob and kill
Tim Eastburn, her ex husband, So they go to his
home inside a trailer park and Sheena goes into the home,
and she's acting like she wants to reconcile with her
ex husband Tim. Right, she gets him by the window
where Terry fires a single shot through that window and
takes down Tim Eastburn. So Terry and his friend Matt,
they then go inside of the home and they steal
everything they thought was of value, and on the way
out Matt myers. He notices Tim move and appears.
Speaker 5: To be breathing.
Speaker 4: He's not dead yet, so Matt fires another shot directly
into Tim's head and kills him. Police investigate. They talk
to the ex wife, as you would imagine, that's the
first person they wanted to talk to, and as you
would expect, she gives up both Matt and Terry and
tells police of this plan.
Speaker 5: So they go speak to Matt.
Speaker 4: Matt says the same story, and they wanted to pretty
much nail Terry in Sheena more than Matt, so in
exchange for a lesser charge. When it's all sudden done,
Sheena and Terry get life in prison and Matt gets
sixty seven years with a parole chance because he agreed
to testify against the other two. And that was in
nineteen ninety two. So back to nineteen ninety nine. Lynette,
as I told you, she's in a really bad spot
in life. She's struggling financially, she just got a divorce,
and she's confiding in this inmate who she's pretty sure
is into her. He flirts with her constantly. And Terry
worked in the food warehouse of this prison and Lynette
that's where she was assigned to guards, so they would
see each other every single day. Well, one day, after
talking back and forth and her confiding in him, and
him being kind of the shoulder to cry on, Terry
goes for it. He pulls her behind a stack of
boxes where no one would see and kisses her, and
she reciprocates, And so it begins with these two. And
quite honestly, Terry caught Lynette at a weak time in
her life. She was dawn, and she was susceptible to
a male figure coming in and trying to be the
strong person for her, even if it was an inmate. Right,
that's all they got is time to do in prison,
and their whole goal is to try and con people.
To them, that's what it's all about. It is just
a game to them, and she played right into Terry's game. Now,
this prison, it's a pretty big prison. There are a
lot of places you can get lost in there. You
can get in a corner where the cameras can't see you,
and you can have some time with someone pretty easily,
and they would take advantage of that. In her as
a correctional officer, she knew where those dead spots, if
you will, in that prison were, and they would have sex,
they would do all kinds of things in these dead spots.
She was absolutely infatuated with Terry. And this continued for months.
And as I've told you in the past, it's present
and inmates are the nosiest people in the world, and
it didn't take long before they noticed something was not
right with these two. They got so bold, y'all. They
would hold hands at some points away from cameras and
sometimes in front of the cameras, and the inmates would
see them, so they knew something was up. And as
you would imagine, about two months in the rumors start
circulating and Terry starts telling Lynette that they need to
hatch a plan to get him out of there before
the relationship is discovered. Now, when he's talking to her
about this, he's saying, I don't want this relationship to end.
The only way that we can be together is if
you can break me out of here. Look, this guy
is just looking for his freedom, but that was his
story to her. He's playing on her heartstrings and all
those sorts of things, and they start hatching a plan.
So on October twenty ninth of nineteen ninety nine, Lynnette
takes her prison issue badge to a place called the
printing Center and she tells the clerks that her boyfriend
had lost his ID card and he'd getting a bunch
of trouble if he has to go tell the bosses
at this prison that. So she asked them if they
would make a copy of that badge, and the clerks
they say, no, we can't do that. They make the
right call, right, But she is undeterred and she goes
to a second stop called Discount Printing and they said, sure,
we can make you one. That same day, Lynnette also
charges eighty dollars worth of men's shirts and jeans on
her JC Penny credit card, and her credit card statement
also showed that she stopped at a gas station filled up,
then drove thirty five miles home and stopped to top
off the tank. So she's making plans to go somewhere
with a dude. So later that evening she shows up
for work, but unbeknownst to her colleagues, she's wearing two
sets of correctional officer uniforms. She takes one set off
in a bathroom and she hides that in the stall
and she leaves with the uniform she had underneath on.
Terry then goes into the bathroom and he does what
you think he's gonna do right here, he puts on
the other set, and at the end of her shift, Terry,
who's now in a correctional officer uniform, and Lynette they
proceed to the security gate to leave. So Lynette Barnett,
she slaps her ID card through the swiping machine at
the security gate at Crossroads Correctional and incidentally, y'all, this
is in Cameron, Missouri. Then she swiped it again for
a man for behind her, which was Terry, and they
stroll out into the parking lot, but the controlled tower
guard stops the man behind Barnat because he didn't recognize
that man, and the guard asked the man who is Terry,
to take off his black baseball cap and hand over
his ID card, and I'm sure Terry at this point
is shitting a brick, but he does as he's told.
And the name on the card, Chad Matthews, was on
the prison employee cross reference less. So the control tower
guard gives the ID back and says, you know, have
a nice day. There was five hundred employees at this prison.
You just can't keep track of every one of them.
And during shift change about one hundred people would leave
and a hunter would come in, so it was a
little chaotic. But they do get out and Terry follows
Lynnett out into the parking lot. He climbs in her
truck and they take off down the road. Now, as
far as Lynette was concerned, no one was expecting her
home that day. She had told her mother and her
mother's boyfriend that she was going forty miles north to
her grandmother's house. This was in Bethany, Missouri, and she
told them she was taking a five day weekend so
they wouldn't get suspicious of her missing for at least
five days. In her mind. Now, all that was missing
from Lynette's room was a toothbrush, toothpaste, deuterant in her
seizure medication. So the prison, and this is a stroke
of bad luck for these two. They do a prison
count like ten minutes after Lynette and Terry leave, and
of course that count comes up one man short. What
happens then they recount, and upon that recount they conclude
that Terry Banks is in fact missing. So at that
point they place all the inmates in lockdown and they
start going through security footage, and sure enough they see
that whole incident transpire when Terry and Lynnette were leaving
the prison, and to that point, an arrest warrant gets
issued for Terry Banks and Lynette. They weren't sure at
this point whether she was being forced to do this
or not, but they went ahead and did an arrest
warrant in the event that she wasn't forced, but they
weren't quite sure yet. However, that wouldn't last long because
the FBI gets called in and they discover that upon
leaving the prison, Lynnette stops at a liquor store outside
of the prison and cash is her fourteen hundred dollars
paycheck rather than just bringing it to the bank. So,
unbeknownst to police FBI, Lynette and Terry their drive drive
driving and They're three hours away, heading sound to where
Terry's dad lived with Terry's dad's brother.
Speaker 5: His name was Charlie Banks.
Speaker 4: He had moved in with Terry's uncle just a few
weeks prior to the escape. And of course they tell
him that Terry's broke out of prison and we need
you to hide us. And Charlie said that he knew
some people that leved in Victoria, Texas and he would
help them, but he'd like to go on the run
with them. As I told you, Charlie Banks was bad news.
Always had been his whole life. So the apple didn't
fall far from the tree there. So they had to Victoria, Texas,
and that's only about one hundred miles from the Mexican border,
which was the ultimate goal for the fugitives. And they're
on the run for about a month. It turns into
December of nineteen ninety nine and the police they have
no real leads as to where the hell these people are.
So police decide to contact a very popular national TV
show called America's Most wanted to feature the case, and
they're hoping that this is going to provide some leads. Now,
one thing they knew was because the three of them
were on the run together. The chances were pretty good
that someone may recognize at least one of these three guys.
The more people you have, the higher those chances increase.
Now in the meantime, on December tenth, police do find
Lynette's truck near Joplin, Missouri, and police discover that Charlie
Banks had sold it to an individual for two thousand
dollars cash, and that America's Most Wanted episode airs, and
police receive over sixty tips as to the whereabouts of
that trio. On December seventeenth of nineteen ninety nine, a
man in Victoria, Texas calls the tip line and he
said he recognized Terry and Lynette in that they were
traveling with an older individual. And he said he remembered
the tattoos that Terry had on his hands and a
scar that was mentioned in the episode on America's Most Wanted.
But what was most interesting to police with this particular
tip is on America's Most Wanted, they didn't mention anything
about those two traveling with an older gentleman. They didn't
say anything about Charlie, and that was on purpose because
they knew if someone mentioned those two traveling with an
older man. There's no way they would have known that,
and it would be a good tip. So police are
fired up. They're pretty sure, hey, we've got a really
valid tip coming out of.
Speaker 5: Victoria, Texas.
Speaker 4: And the tipster he even gave the address where he
met them at. Investigators go to that address and sure enough,
there was a couple that lived there. That's the description
of Terry Banks and Lynette. The apartment manager brings them
up to the apartment. The police opened the door and
it's completely empty, no one there. Police would discover later
on that in between the time that authorities have received
that tip in them showing up at the apartment, Terry
Banks had been approached by someone else who lived in
that complex, and that person told Terry in a joking
manner that he looked just like the guy from an
episode of America's Most Wanted, and of course Terry was like,
holy shit. He goes in, he tells Lynette, and they
got the hell out of there. And what they actually
did was they packed their shit and they had to
Charlie's hideout. He was hiding out in a I guess
you could say unmarked trailer park. No one could trace
it back to him, and that became the hotout for
Terry Andnette and police. They had no idea where they
were at, but they knew they were close. They knew
they were hot on their trail. So another tip comes
in from someone else, but this time that person recognized Charlie,
who police had at this point made public, and they
pointed out to police where this guy's trailer park was,
where this particular trailer was, and police start surveilling it.
Now FBI agents and officers from the Victoria Police Department,
the Sheriff's office, the Texas Department of Public Safety. They
all show up conveniently at one of the officer's house,
which was up on top of the hill and it
overlooked that trailer park, so they could watch the comings
and goings literally from this officer's house. And sure enough,
that afternoon they see Terry and Lynette walking with their dog,
whose name was Oreo, through the trailer park. Charlie gets
home that afternoon and they start drinking beer, smoking cigarettes,
watching TV, etc. And when night fell, the officers start
kind of moving in. And there was a fifteen acre
cornfield that separated that trailer park and the highway and
that's where they kind of start moving in because that
corn created natural hiding spots for these police officers. And
they see Terry. He's walking back and forth to and
from the trailer. So throughout the night they're positioning, they
start closing off highways. They know they've got this guy,
but they had heard a lot of rumors that Terry
stayed armed at all times, so they weren't taking any chances.
They figured we'll wait till they're asleep and then we'll
go make the arrest. So, as luck would have it,
at some point during the US Charlie walks outside and
they take him into custody right away. At this point,
Banks and Barnett they're still inside the trailer, so police
decide this is the time to make our move. They
get on the bullhorn and they start screaming Banks and
Barnett come out with your hands up, and they do
this thirteen times and nobody comes out. Finally, after what
seemed like an eternity, some hands come out at the
front of the trailer and it is Lynette. She immediately
gets arrested, thrown in a patrol car, and still Terry
is refusing to come out. Stay on that bullhorn, and
then they decide, we're not waiting any longer, we're going in.
And about the seconds that they decide to do that,
Terry's hands appear and there was no fight. He gave
himself up and surrenders to police and they actually threw
him in the patrol corps with Lynnette. So they go
to the county jail. Lynnette costs her mother, and her
mother even commented that Lynnette was asking how Terry was doing.
Had her mother heard anything. She also called her sister,
and her sister would say later that it was all
about Terry and she was just defending Terry and was
very concerned about him. So that shows you how much
the high bristophilia was filling up this woman. So regardless,
they're all in jail, and Charlie Banks he remains behind
bars in Victoria County jail. He gets a bail of
twenty thousand dollars and there's a lot of people that
wanted to interview him and find out what was going
on with these three, but the police would not allow
interviews at this point. So they all had their arraiments.
They all do what you think they would do in
these cases. They plead not guilty because they want to
work out plea deals, right, and actually, see Charlie Banks,
he had a pretty good deal. He ends up with
a year in prison. After it was all said and done,
Lynette Barnett, she pleaded guilty to aiding in the escape
of a prisoner in court that was on October second
of two thousand and the judge gives Lynette the charges
maximum sentence, which was five years. And as for Terry Banks,
who was serving life in prison already, he gets an
additional fifteen years for the escape. So throughout this whole thing,
he had nothing to lose, right, ends up with an
extra fifteen years on top of a life sentence. But
there you have it. And look, America's most Wanted I
have reviewed a lot of these cases, and back in
that time, that was like the most popular TV show
in America in the nineties. So a lot of these
escapes that took place in the nineties.
Speaker 5: That's how they would catch these fools.
Speaker 4: This was kind of pre I mean, there was social
media and all that stuff, but it's not what it
was or what it is today. Back then that was
kind of the social media. That's how you got the
word out was you had to be on something like
America's Most Wanted, so shout out to them. And I
got a little bit of something extra for you today,
a little lang yap, if you will, as we say
here in South Louisiana. And it's just a real quick story.
But I wanted to include this because it's pretty crazy.
I thought y'all would find it entertaining. And I'm gonna
tell you about Tina Gonzalez, who was twenty six years
old and she began her career as a Fresno County
Sheriff's correctional officer. This was in September of twenty sixteen.
Now she resigned from her job at the end of
December of twenty nineteen. So, in early December of twenty nineteen,
Fresno County jail staff members they received a tip that
a male inmate was in possession of a cell phone
and was also involved in a one year sexual relationship
with a correctional officer by the name of Tina Gonzalez.
Jail staff they searched the cell of this inmate and
they find that mobile phone. So those allegations were passed
on to members of the Sheriff's executive staff and this
internal affairs unit was assigned to investigate the accused employee
and the vice unit was tasked with investigating potential crimes
committed by Gonzales related to all this. So both units
found evidence to support these allegations. In addition to that,
detectives discovered that Gonzales had on one occasion, brought alcohol
into the jail. Now this charge stemmed from a separate
incident from Gonzala's relationship with the inmate. The you've been
screwing for over a year. So detectives come in, they
interview Gonzales, and she submits her resignation to the Sheriff's office.
So let me tell you how this all goes down
from there. On Friday, May first of twenty twenty, detectives
arrest twenty six year old Tina Gonzales after that five
month investigation, and she faced some felony charges including sexual
activity with an inmate, possession of a controlled substance in
a jail in a misdemeanor charge of possession of a
cell phone with the intent to deliver to an inmate,
and her bail was set at twenty one thousand dollars
and she bailed out of custody after spending about a
day in jail, so the Fresno County DA's office they
formally file criminal complaints against Gonzales. Then, on June thirteenth
of twenty twenty, Gonzala's post on Instagram under the handle
and get the her insta handle is Hustled twenty three
hard and she even has a slogan under there. Every
Saint has a past, every center has a future, and
she posted some pretty provocative photos. You can go check
them out if you'd like. On Tuesday, July seventh of
twenty twenty ten, and Gazalis pleded not guilty to three
counts of sexual activity with a confined adult, one count
of possession of a controlled substance in jail, and one
count of possession of a cell phone.
Speaker 5: With the intent to give it to an inmate.
Speaker 4: Then, on Tuesday, April twenty seventh of twenty twenty one,
Gazalis pleaded no contest to one count of felony sexual
activity by a detention facility employee with a consenting confined adult,
one count of felony possession of drugs or alcoholic beverages
in a jail facility, and a misdemeanor count of possession
of cellular devices with the intent to deliver to an inmate. Now,
obviously they worked a deal there, which is why she
pleaded no contest, and as part of the deal, Prosecutor
Vanessa Leona said, two felon accounts of having sex with
an inmate were dropped, reducing her jail sentence from a
maximum of five years in prison to a maximum of
three years and eight months and probation was on the table.
So she eventually gets sentenced, and she admitted to three crimes,
including having sex with an inmate, providing the inmate with drugs,
and that cell phone in the Sheriff Steve mccunns said
at that sentencing hearing that in his twenty six years
in law enforcement he had seen some pretty disgusting things
and had heard some pretty discussing things, but what Tiniganzalez
did was at the top of his list. And get this,
He goes on to say, cutting a hole in your
pants to make it easier to have sex with an
inmate and having intercourse in full view of eleven other
inmates as something only a depraved mind could come up with.
And this was the first time the public was hearing
about that. Mccummus said that Gonzala's betrayed her oath even
worse when she put her fellow correctional officers at risk
by giving the inmate razor blades, a cell phone and
critical jail intelligence. And that's the big problem with these relationships, right,
is usually once that relationship is formed, it puts everybody
else in the facility at risk. The prosecutor, Caitlin Drake,
said of Gonzale's activity in the jail that she at
times communicated sensitive information to the inmate about individuals who
were entering the inmate's pod, as well as times when
the pod would be searched. So Gonzale she didn't say
anything at her sentencing, but her attorney claimed that her
marriage was falling apart when she started a relationship with
the inmate, claiming she was vulnerable and they all used
that excuse. We just covered that, right. Her attorney went
on to say it was never her intention to bring
any harm or danger to the employees in the jail
or anyone else. Phone records are reviewed for the hearing
that Gonzalez continued to have a relationship with the inmate
even after her resignation in December of twenty nineteen, and
the prosecutor went on to say the fact she continually calls,
has sexual, explicit conversations with the inmate in question, and
even boast about the crimes she carried out shows she's
incapable of owning up to her mistakes, and he implored
the judge to give Gonzalez the maximum punishment of three
years in eight months because he wanted to send a
clear message this type of crime would not be tolerated
as an employee of the jail, so the judge could
have sent her to jail for that length of time,
but Notta she had no prior criminal history and admitted
her crimes. The judge disagreed with the prosecutor and said
his job was to punish her for the crimes that
she committed. The judge went on to say, I think
what you did was terrible, stupid. You've ruined your career,
you endangered fellow officers.
Speaker 5: But I also.
Speaker 4: Believe that people can redeem themselves. You have the rest
of your life to prove that, and Gonzalez was eventually
sentenced to serve seven months in jail in two years
of formal probation with Time Serve credits.
Speaker 5: Pretty wild. So that's her high.
Speaker 4: Bristophilia story, and I wanted to give you a little
bit extra today. I appreciate you listening and I hope
you enjoyed this episode of Bloody and Gola. Check us
out on the Patreon commercial free early releases, more patreon
dot com, slash Bloody Andngola podcast and until next time
for Bloody and Gola, a podcast one and forty two
years in the making, the complete story of America's bloodiest
present Peace.
Speaker 2: A Wall Street line, shackle, chain, Oh, bluesome gird, It's
calling my name.
Speaker 1: There is no mercy and it's been a tentery juice
as the hill Stream game.
Speaker 3: Rangle three, I'm in by me to die.
Speaker 2: Inside these walls, inside the wild.
Speaker 3: And when the girl, as I know, it's Boody Angle,
Obody Angle, an