NEWS

Parents of Slain Teens Sue State Prison System

Nolan Clay

Dec. 10, 1985, 12:00 a.m. CT

The parents of two slain teen-agers Monday alleged in a $7,010,000 lawsuit that the Oklahoma Department of Corrections is responsible for their daughters' deaths at the hands of two escapees.

The parents of Mary Ophelia Bernal and Angela Faith Harragarra charge negligence by the corrections department and its officials resulted in the escape on Dec. 5, 1983, of the two men who allegedly killed their daughters.

The lawsuit was filed in Oklahoma County District Court.

The bodies of Bernal, 18, and Harragarra, 17, were found Dec. 9, 1983, by cattle company employees in a Texas Panhandle county. The escapees, Ronnie Joe Miller and Bobby Gene Raiburn, were captured in Amarillo, Texas, five days later but not charged in the deaths.

Texas authorities, however, said they were preparing to charge Miller in the slayings when he was strangled with a wire in an Oklahoma prison in August 1984. Miller was linked to the crime by a comparison of his teeth with bite marks found on the backs of the two women, authorities said.

The lawsuit said the two escapees on Dec. 9, 1983, "did assault, terrorize, maim, batter, rape and murder (the two) in or near Carson County, Texas."

The men escaped from the Lexington Correctional Center, officials said. Raiburn, 41, was serving a 15-year sentence for auto theft and escape by force. Miller, 30, was serving 50 years for assault with a dangerous weapon.

The dead women were beaten to death with a crowbar and a tool had been plunged into the backs of their heads, authorities said.

Bernal's mother is identified as Mildred Bernal Watson. She and the woman's father, Anthony Bernal, seek $3,505,000.

Harragarra's parents are identified as Vernon and Rosella Harragarra of Arizona. They also seek $3,505,000.

The lawsuit also names as defendants corrections director Larry Meachum, warden Peter Ray Douglas of the Lexington Correctional Center and warden Ron Angelone of the Joseph Harp Correctional Institution.