Frontera Escapee, Guard Nabbed at El Paso Airport

Jeanette Hughes, a Huntington Beach woman convicted of conspiring to kill her husband, and a prison guard who allegedly helped her escape from prison have been captured at the El Paso airport, authorities said today.

El Paso police said Hughes and guard Cindy Coglietti were taken into custody Tuesday evening after a tip that the two may have been meeting an airline passenger to receive cash.

The two women are being held at the El Paso County Jail while California officials seek to have them extradited.

Hughes, 36, was serving a 25-years-to-life term at the California Institution for Women at Frontera when she escaped March 25. She had been convicted of conspiring to kill her husband, James, in 1984 at their Huntington Beach home.

Authorities later confirmed that Coglietti, a guard at the prison, was suspected of aiding Hughes in her escape.

Adolph Metcalfe, an El Paso police spokesman, said Hughes and Coglietti gave false names when they were approached by officers at the El Paso International Airport. He said that their real identities were later confirmed and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was alerted.

Authorities have provided few details of how Hughes escaped from the San Bernardino County prison, but there have been unconfirmed reports that Coglietti provided Hughes with a guard’s uniform to allow her to walk out of the prison. Prison officials said they are also looking at the possibility that Hughes was somehow smuggled out of the facility in a van.

The prison officials said the capture does, however, put to an end the possibility that Coglietti had been kidnaped, a theory they had refused to rule out in recent days.

Instead, Associate Warden Ross Dykes said it appears that Hughes and Coglietti plotted the escape in concert and fled together.

Prison officials refused to discuss reports that had swirled around the prison since the escape that Hughes and Coglietti are lovers.

But Dykes did say, “It’s not a pretty thing to see one one of your fellow (staff members) fall victim to a manipulative inmate.”

Coglietti had been one of several correction officials who were responsible for escorting Hughes to and from various activities because she was considered a high escape risk. Hughes had tried to saw the bars of her cell in 1987.

Coglietti, who lives in Victorville and has worked at the prison for five years, faces charges of aiding and abetting an escapee. Authorities said that Hughes has relatives in Texas and that her parents in San Bernardino were helpful in tracking down the pair. They refused to give details of the capture.

Because of the escape, authorities said Hughes could face additional time in prison.