The move from Ellis, which authorities say had been under consideration for some time, was hastened by last November's escape attempt by seven death row inmates. One of them, Martin Gurule, managed to flee, becoming the first prisoner to escape death row in in Texas in 64 years. He drowned shortly after the breakout but it took a week before his body was discovered. There's absolutely nothing here that resembles the Ellis Unit,'' prison spokesman Larry Fitzgerald said. At Ellis, buit in 1963, long wings of cells, three rows high, have doors of traditional jail bars, some of them covered in heavy mesh wire.
Televisions are in the day rooms or attached to the walls of walkways.
At Terrell, named for a former prison board member and constructed in 1993, concrete and steel replaces the bars. Contact among inmates, common at Ellis, will be rare. They're single celled, no open cell fronts, everything is confined. This is totally self-sufficient.'' Unlike the long rows in the old unit, inmates at Terrell are clustered in pods. There are 14 cells in a section and 6 sections comprise a pod of 84 cells.