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Credit: Reuters/Florida Dept of Corrections/Handout via Reuters
By Bill Cotterell
TALLAHASSEE, Florida | Sun Oct 20, 2013 3:38pm EDT
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Two recaptured killers who walked away from life terms in a Florida prison had "a lot of help" obtaining forged release papers, and more arrests are coming, the head of the state's law enforcement agency said on Sunday.
The two convicted murderers, released from the Apalachicola Correctional Institute on forged documents that reduced their life-without-parole sentences, were recaptured on Saturday at a motel in Panama City Beach, Florida.
Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker were believed to be waiting to be transported to another state when they were found, said Gerald Bailey, commissioner of the Department of Law Enforcement, at a news briefing.
"They had to have had help, and a lot of help, to get to where they were last night," he said.
After questioning Jenkins and Walker, police were seeking several unidentified "associates" he said.
"While the manhunt is over, there's still a lot that we do not know. I can tell you, there will be more arrests," he said.
Authorities declined to discuss details of how the bogus release papers came to be created, but said an assistant prosecutor grew suspicious of the paperwork that had been signed
by officials who do not normally handle sentence reductions.
From now on, the state prison system has told court clerks to check with judges before accepting any sentence-reduction or release papers bearing their signatures, authorities said.
Bailey said two previous attempts at forging release papers had been caught in routine screening procedures.
In this case, investigators have some speculative leads on how the forgery might have been accomplished, he said.
"There is speculation, and underline â