Perry Orders Prison Lockdown, Death Row Inmate Had Cell Phone

HOUSTON (AP) – Gov. Rick Perry has ordered a lockdown of Texas prisons and a search of all inmates after a cell phone was confiscated today from a condemned killer.

Investigators allege Richard Tabler’s mother bought minutes for the cell phone, which he used to call a legislator and make threatening remarks about the lawmaker’s daughters.

Perry says a guard allegedly accepted a bribe to deliver the cell phone.

Lorraine Tabler of Blackshear, Ga., was arrested today at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on charges of providing a prohibited item to an inmate.

The investigation started after Richard Tabler on Oct. 7 started calling Houston’s John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.

Richard Tabler was condemned for a 2004 shooting spree that left four dead. The victims had ties to a Killeen strip club. The phone was bought in Waco in 2007.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)