Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 2, 1994                   TAG: 9407040128
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press Note: below
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W. VA.                                 LENGTH: Medium

PRISONER FLOSSES HIS WAY TO FREEDOM

While cameras, guards and computer-controlled doors were keeping other inmates in, Shepard braided the floss into a rope as thick as a telephone cord and used it to scale an 18-foot wall.

Townspeople are talking of Shepard as a real-life Spiderman - the comic-book hero who spins his web and hangs from ceilings - and dreaming up 1,001 new uses for floss.

``I just wonder how he got a hold of so much dental floss,'' said Mike Reiser, who lives near the South Central Regional Jail in South Charleston. ``What did this guy do? Walk around with stuff in his mouth all the time?''

Shepard escaped from the recreation yard, which is topped by a chain-link fence.

The 5-foot-9, 155-pound inmate apparently attached a weight to his waxed and minty-fresh cord and hurled it upward to loop it through the fence. He then apparently used it to help him climb the cinder block wall, and then hung from the cord while he cut through the fence with a 3-inch piece of hacksaw blade.

Shepard, 34, remained at large Friday, two days after the breakout. He had been awaiting trial on charges of robbing a post office, and his record includes convictions for manslaughter and armed robbery.

At the time of the escape, he was being disciplined with reduced privileges for using a handmade tool to scrape mortar in his cell. He was not allowed into the exercise yard until late at night, after other inmates were locked in.

Just how much floss it takes to make a rope of such a size hasn't been documented. Packages typically contain 55 yards.

Jail Administrator Larry Parsons said officials were checking records to see how much Shepard may have bought at the commissary.

``I just find it incredible that somebody could use something that thin,'' Parsons said. ``He's almost taken on superhuman qualities.''

In the meantime, inmates will have to pick their teeth. Sales of floss have been suspended.