Escapee chose death over jail

Kim Smith and Jace Radke

Monday, Aug. 30, 1999 | 11:30 a.m.

The thought of missing 15 years of his two daughters' lives was too much for escapee Timothy Blackburn to bear, defense attorney Ulrich Smith said today.

Although significantly less than the 30-year minimum sentence a jury could have handed him, Smith said Blackburn did not think the proposed deal was good enough.

"Tim told me six months ago he really loved his children, and he was pretty down at the prospect of 15 years in prison away from them," Smith said. "His thinking was 'If I can't be with my kids and if I'm going to miss them growing up, I'm gonna break out of here.' "

No one dreamed, however, the lengths Blackburn, 25, would go to to remain with his children.

Blackburn was shot and killed by two Metro SWAT officers in a Boulder Highway motel room Sunday morning, but not before he shot Tiana, 5, Tiara, 4, and his wife, Puthea Lea, 24, to death, according to authorities.

The tragedy ended 18 days after Blackburn busted out of the North Las Vegas Detention Center reportedly with the help of his wife. Blackburn had been awaiting trial on charges he helped in the December $1 million heist of a Bank of America automated teller machine repository.

"The day after he broke out of jail I told someone that it was going to come to a bad end -- the guy had nothing to lose," Smith said.

Smith said he suspected Blackburn would die in a shoot-out with law enforcement officers -- a fear shared by Blackburn's mother, Soon Blackburn. She came to visit him last Wednesday begging him to work out something with prosecutors so her son would turn himself in, he said.

Soon Blackburn told the defense attorney she did not know where her son was.

"She was worried about her grandchildren dying in the cross-fire," Smith said.

But, Smith said, Blackburn was smart enough to know that the escape ruined his chances of getting a break on the 30 years-to-life prison sentence he faced on the bank robbery charge. He also probably knew he could get more than 20 years for escape.

Actually Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Schiess said Blackburn's minimum sentence would likely have been 40 or more years if he had been convicted on every robbery count. And if Blackburn had survived Sunday's incident, he could have gotten another 20 years for charges in connection with the standoff.

Schiess said he wasn't surprised by Blackburn's violent end, but he was shocked and saddened by the children's deaths.

It basically came down to the fact that Blackburn did not want to leave his kids behind, Smith said.

"That kind of thinking is really warped. No matter how desperate a man gets I can't understand how he could kill his own kids," Smith said. "I'm just sickened, really sickened by him shooting those two little kids."

Blackburn's former neighbors, however, expressed disbelief that he killed the girls.

"I just can't see him doing that to his little girls," said Lloyd Bradley who lives just down the street from the Blackburn's former home. "He was always playing with his little girls, and he played with the kids in the neighborhood, too."

Authorities had theorized that Blackburn, 25, was on the run with his family after he escaped from jail with the help of a woman they believed was his wife.

"I guess anyone could snap in a situation like that, but to kill your daughters," said Blackburn's former next door neighbor who wished to remain nameless. "It's all hearsay that he did kill them at this point, and I just don't know if he could have done it."

At about 2:30 a.m. Sunday police got a tip that Blackburn was in room 234 at the Budget Suites, 4625 Boulder Highway. After hours of negotiation, Blackburn began to threaten the lives of his family, police said.

Two SWAT officers went into the second-floor room as Blackburn was shooting his wife and children, and the officers opened fire on Blackburn, police said.

SWAT officers rushed Blackburn's daughters into waiting ambulances that took them to University Medical Center where they died of their wounds.

Blackburn and his wife were pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities are still investigating the exact circumstances of the four deaths.

The two officers involved in the shooting have been placed on administrative leave, and their identities will not be released until 48 hours after the incident.

After confirming that Blackburn was in room 234, police quickly evacuated other guests and residents from Budget Suites building E, the northwestern-most building in the motel complex.

"I went to sleep with the window open, and I woke up at to a policeman sticking his head through the window, looking down on me and telling me to get out," said James Dalton, who was staying on the third floor of building E with his wife, two children and his cousin. "We left everything in there and got out fast.

"After it was over, I asked the police if we could go back in, and they said we could after they checked to make sure there was no bullet holes in our room. That made me glad that they evacuated us."

Bea Gibison was startled awake by bright lights flashing through the windows of her home in the 4600 block of Twain Avenue, which backs up to the motel and building E.

"The lights were the police helicopter flying around," Gibison said. "Later at about 6 a.m there was a very loud bang that sounded like shooting."

Another person staying in a room in building E said she was scared when she started hearing gunfire.

"After we were evacuated I stayed outside and then there were two big bangs, and then what sounded like pistols shooting," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. "I knew something had gone wrong at that point."

Budget Suites management had no comment on how long Blackburn and his family had been staying at the motel.

Blackburn had been in jail in North Las Vegas for eight months before he escaped, police said. He was scheduled to go to trial in October in connection with a December armed robbery from a Bank of America repository.

Blackburn strayed from the profile of the typical bank robber, who generally has little contact with relatives, authorities said. Neighbors agree that Blackburn did care for his family and had seemed to enjoy spending time with children, which is why Sunday morning's events came as a surprise to those who live in his old neighborhood on Pipe Spring Drive.

"My 11-year-old son use to go over to their house and play with his daughters and play pool," Bradley said. "My mother lives in the house behind ours, and her dog got lost and Blackburn found it and took care of it.

"We had just got the dog from the pound and it chewed up his blinds, but he (Blackburn) didn't get mad he just wanted to take care of a lost dog. We offered to pay for the blinds, but he said not to worry about it."