Curtis Bernard Billue, 58, was a Georgia Department of Corrections corrections officer who was killed while co-piloting a transport bus in Putnam County in the early morning hours of June 13, 2017. He and Sergeant Christopher Monica were escorting 33 inmates when two prisoners, Ricky Dubose and Donnie Rowe, freed themselves from restraints, breached a locked gate on the bus, and overpowered the officers. Prosecutors say Dubose then used one of the officers’ firearms to fatally shoot both Monica and Billue.

After the killings the two inmates fled, carjacked a nearby vehicle and triggered a multi-day manhunt that included additional crimes such as tying up an elderly couple and stealing their car in Shelbyville, Tennessee. They were captured in Rutherford County following a high-speed chase and crash when a homeowner held them at gunpoint until police arrived. Both men were tried for the murders; Rowe was convicted in September 2021 and given life without parole after jurors could not agree on death, and Dubose was convicted in June 2022 with a jury unanimously recommending the death penalty, after which a judge sentenced him to death.

Are there details about the transport procedures that anyone with knowledge of the Georgia Department of Corrections can share that might explain how the inmates were able to overpower the officers?