Escaped prisoner kills three family members before police shoot him

Monday, Aug. 30, 1999 | 8:48 a.m.

The shootings came after police tracked robbery suspect Timothy Lee Blackburn, 25, to an east Las Vegas complex where apartments are rented by the week and tried unsuccessfully for three hours to negotiate his surrender early Sunday morning.

Las Vegas Metro Deputy Chief Kyle Edwards said police SWAT officers were negotiating with Blackburn when they heard a series of shots. Police broke into the apartment and found Blackburn in the process of shooting his wife to death.

Two officers fired and killed him, but the woman was already dead.

Police found the bodies of Blackburn's daughters, ages 4 and 5, in a bathtub. They had been shot to death.

"He made indications he would take the lives of everyone in the apartment," Edwards said. "They tried to get him out and he refused."

Blackburn escaped from the North Las Vegas jail Aug. 11 with the help of an accomplice who used a drill to dislodge thick glass separating visitors from inmates in the visiting area.

He traded shots with officers as they fled, and police have been looking for him since.

Blackburn was being held in connection with the Dec. 21 robbery of $1.1 million from an ATM repository at a Bank of America vault in Las Vegas.

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