Read more: Local, State, Crime, Quincy Adams, Mikal Mahdi
COLUMBIA -- A prison guard at the state's death row facility in Ridgeville remains in stable condition after being stabbed by two condemned inmates Wednesday morning.
Corrections Department spokesman Josh Gelinas says the still-unidentified officer was monitoring two inmates near an outdoor recreational area near the death-row housing unit when the inmates stabbed the officer repeatedly with a makeshift weapon.
The officer then fled inside the building, where additional officers then used pepper spray to subdue the inmates, said Gelinas.
Gelinas said the two death-row inmates involved in the attack were Quincy Allen, 30, and Mikal Mahdi, 26.
Allen plead guilty in 2005 to murdering Jedediah Harr, 22, at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Northeastern Richland County in 2002 as well as killing and burning the body of Dale Hall, 45, on Two Notch Road. Allen also shot James White, 51, in downtown Columbia's Finlay Park. White survived the shooting.
Allen then led police on a multi-state manhunt, including the killing of two more people at a N.C. convenience store, before being captured in Texas.
The S.C. Supreme Court had just upheld Allen's original death sentence several weeks ago; rejecting his appeal November 16.
Mahdi was convicted of murdering an Orangeburg public safety officer on his family farm in Calhoun County in 2004.
Allen and Mahdi have been placed in special management cells reserved for disorderly inmates and fellow prisoners have been placed on lockdown after the incident, according to Gelinas.
The Department of Corrections and S.C. Law Enforcement Division continue to investigate.
