Texas prison employee killed in attack

AMARILLO, Texas, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- The manager of a Texas prison shoe factory at Amarillo was fatally wounded Wednesday in an inmate attack.

Stanley Wiley, 38, was discovered bleeding from the attack about 7 a.m. in the shoe factory at the maximum-security Clements Unit, prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said. Wiley four hours later a Northwest Texas Hospital in Amarillo.

Travis Runnels, a 26-year-old inmate, was being questioned about the attack, Fitzgerald said. Runnels is serving 70 years on burglary and aggravated robbery convictions from Dallas County.

"There were a number of witnesses and it is an ongoing investigation," Fitzgerald said.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice's inspector general will investigate the attack and turn findings over to a special prosecutor. An inmate convicted of killing a correctional officer could face the death penalty.

The last Texas correctional officer killed in the line of duty was Daniel Nagle in December 1999 at the McConnell Unit near Beeville. Inmate Robert Lynn Pruett was convicted of capital murder and he is awaiting the death penalty.

Wiley was hired as correctional officer in 1994 and later promoted to supervise the shoe factory that manufactures footwear for inmates.