Also in today's American-Statesman, Mike Ward reports, "Inmate at center of cell phone controversy transferred to psychiatric unit."
Death row convict Richard Lee Tabler, whose exploits with a cell phone triggered a major lockdown of Texas' prison system, was transferred Wednesday to a psychiatric unit.
Officials said Tabler, 29, was being moved from the Polunsky Unit near Livingston to a unit southwest of Houston after correctional officers discovered a 3-foot piece of sheet dangling from the ceiling of his cell.
Officials feared he was making a noose, said Michelle Lyons, chief spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Prison officials said Tabler, who had complained earlier that he was being denied medical attention, was not injured.
The episode came as a second person was arrested in the ongoing investigation: Tabler's sister, who surrendered to authorities Wednesday on a felony charge of introducing contraband into a prison.
Using a smuggled cell phone, Tabler had racked up more than 2,800 calls in a month including several to a state senator, investigators have said.
They say they think at least nine other death row inmates made some of the calls from the phone.
Authorities said Tabler's sister, Kristina Martinez, 36, of Salado, surrendered to Killeen police and was released on $10,000 bail.
Tabler's mother, Lorraine Tabler, 60, was jailed Monday in Austin on a similar charge after she arrived on a plane from Atlanta.
"Security sweep at Texas prisons turns up 13 cellphones so far," is the latest AP filing, via the Dallas Morning News.
An ongoing security sweep of the state's 112 prison units has yielded 13 cellphones and 12 phone chargers in a growing scandal over prohibited telephones being smuggled in to inmates.
Authorities also charged a second person Wednesday, accusing her of being involved in a death-row inmate's possession of a phone.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials also said officers have seized at least one subscriber identity module, or SIM card, a postage-stamp-size tool that plugs into cellphones and transfers information from one phone to another.
The prisons have been locked down since Monday evening after Gov. Rick Perry ordered agency officials to ferret out any contraband.
Lisa Sandberg writes, "Prisons search yields 13 more cell phones," in today's Houston Chronicle.
The massive search through Texas prisons has turned up 13 more smuggled cell phones and 12 more cell phone chargers in the past 24 hours, including another phone and charger found on death row, Clark said.
The cell phone and charger discovered on death row were found above the ceiling in the men's shower area. That brings the number of cell phones found since Monday on Texas' death row to four. Another 19 cell phones or cell phone parts have been discovered on death row since January.
The prison system remains locked down, with inmates assigned to their cells as correctional officers sweep all prison units for contraband, a process that could take three weeks.
Earlier coverage of this developing story begins here.
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