Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 5, 1991 TAG: 9102050544
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Tuggle wants to fight against Saddam Hussein's army.
In letters to President Bush and Gov. Douglas Wilder, Tuggle volunteers to "perform my duties as directed and lay down my life if necessary for the United States of America."
Tuggle said he has "prior military experience" and is qualified with machine guns, grenade launchers and land mines. "I also have experience with C4 and other plastic explosives, and can drive any size or make of car or truck," he said.
Tuggle, whose 1984 escape from Mecklenburg Correctional Center lasted less than three weeks, wrote that many of the killers on death row across the United States could be trusted to go on "risk missions" against Iraq.
Tuggle does not specifically mention freedom or commutation of his death sentence as the reward.
But he cited the 1967 film "The Dirty Dozen" as the model for his proposal. In the movie, 12 convicts were recruited for a suicide mission during World War II. The survivors were rewarded with parole.
Corrections officials declined to comment publicly on Tuggle's letter. But one official said privately that "I wouldn't imagine anybody would take him up on his offer."
Tuggle was sentenced to 20 years for murdering a 17-year-old girl in 1971. Four months after being paroled in 1983, he raped and murdered a 52-year-old woman in Smyth County. A jury sentenced him to death.
In May 1984, he was one of six men who broke out of Mecklenburg by posing as guards disposing of a fake bomb. All were recaptured.
In 1985, he and three other inmates unsuccessfully tried to break out by brandishing a fake pistol made of cardboard and exploding a homemade matchstick bomb.
In 1987, Tuggle and fellow inmate James Payne tried to break out by cutting through metal screens and hiding their work with shoe polish. Guards discovered the cuts before they made their break.
In his letter, Tuggle also volunteered Payne's services to the war effort.
by CNB