Douglas Alward was sentenced April 20 to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree burglary and second-degree kidnapping stemming from his Aug. 22, 2010 escape.
Alward is the only man to ever escape past a lethal electric fence at the Sterling Correctional Facility. Alward started writing to 9NEWS after the 2010 escape.
In his letter to 9Wants to Know, he wrote about everything from his childhood, to his many flights from the law, which included escapes such as crashing a bus through a prison gate, breaking a chain that was supposed to keep him in a hospital room, using a construction board to walk over the prison wall and even overpowering a guard and running out the back door of a courthouse.
He also told of his daily life in prison and his boldest escape on record: His bolt out of the "inescapable" Sterling Correctional Facility.
There are more than 50 handwritten pages, each one revealing something different about the man who shocked prison staff.
"I think he is proud of it and this is a way to keep himself feeling important, as if he has a purpose," licensed clinical psychologist Elizabeth Sather said.
Sather has evaluated inmates for 27 years. She has never met Alward so she cannot diagnose him. She has reviewed his letters.
Some are mundane.
"I do alright in [administrative segregation]. I'm not a big fan of people in general so I do okay by myself," Alward wrote in October 2010.
Administrative segregation is the highest security classification at the Colorado Department of Corrections, where inmates spend 23 hours a day in a cell alone.
Other letters Alward wrote are seemingly crazy, such as one from March 2011.
"Won't let the rabbits and bunnies be killed and tortured by Christian gangs because of their God," he wrote.
Sather keyed in on that letter, noting the tone is different from the mostly factual letters Alward had sent previously.
"That doesn't make any sense. You don't have an idea of what he's trying to say, you can't track what's going on," she said.
Sather noticed something she says is important in another letter from December 2012.
"The word of God never created anything, never cured any disease or produced anything of value. Mortimer The Great's teaching allowed men to go to the moon," Alward wrote.
Then in the next paragraph he says, "I will only have this lawyer for a short time probably."
Sather says there is a big clue in that passage.
"That's not typical of someone who is severely mentally ill. They can't transition that quickly. They certainly don't switch to talking about their legal case generally. More common to see in someone who is pretending they are mentally ill," she said.
Sather says inmates have been known to trick people into thinking they are crazy.
"They can fake it because they want medication," she said. "It may be helpful for them in court to say I was mentally ill when I committed the charges."
Sather says Alward could be exhibiting signs of a psychopath.
"Psychopaths are people who commit a series of crimes over a period of time and also are very calloused and remorseless, and are not so interested in other people as human beings or what they are doing to the system or to the community in general," she said.
Defense attorney Greg Graf says if a client of his wrote letters similar to Alward's he would question the inmate's purpose.
"I would be extremely suspicious of the letters he wrote to [9NEWS]," Graf said.
Graf says he's seen inmates try to act insane before.
Alward originally pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity on August 26, 2011. He told us he wanted to prove that case in court.
In the end, Alward decided he wasn't insane and entered his guilty plea.
"[Entering] a guilty plea means his attorneys had to be satisfied that he was competent to enter the plea," Graf said.
Have a comment or tip for investigative reporter Jace Larson? Call him at 303-871-1432 or e-mail him
