Death Row Gun Is Called A Hoax

The state’s prison chief said Saturday there was no evidence that an inmate concealed a .32-caliber revolver in a typewriter within easy reach of his deathhouse cell.

Willie Lloyd Turner’s lawyer said he found the gun in a compartment behind the typewriter ribbon about an hour after Turner’s execution Thursday night.

“We feel that the allegations are unfounded and raise the questions about the possibility of an elaborate hoax,” Ron Angelone, the Corrections Department director, said in a statement read by a department official at a news conference.

According to Angelone, neither the gun, the shells nor the plastic bag the lawyer reported finding had Turner’s fingerprints on them and an investigation found no evidence that the weapon was ever inside the prison.

Angelone didn’t attend the news conference.