A North Carolina Inmate's Jail Escape Plot Was Ruined After His Plans Were Delivered To The Wrong Address

Authorities learned of the escape plan after an individual alerted officials to a letter they had erroneously received containing jail drawings and bomb-making instructions.

A North Carolina inmate's plan to escape jail by blowing up the detention center where is incarcerated was foiled after a letter containing the instructions for plot was delivered to the wrong address.

Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson said 43-year-old Sean Damion Castorina was allegedly conspiring with two other men to blow a hole through a wall at the Alamance County Detention Center in Graham, North Carolina, where Castorina is being held on a first-degree murder charge.

Johnson said authorities learned of the plan on Dec. 6 after an individual alerted officials to a letter they had received containing drawings of the detention center and the surrounding buildings, and instructions on how to make a bomb and where to plant it.

"That individual opened that letter not realizing it was not destined for them," Johnson told reporters during a press conference Friday.

An investigation by the sheriff's department later identified Shannon Douglas Gurkin, 23, and Dakota Lee Marek, 24, as the intended recipients of the plans. The two men were arrested Thursday, according to online booking records.

It was Castorina's second attempt this year to escape custody, Johnson said, describing the inmate as an anarchist with a lengthy criminal record.

"He does not apparently believe in law and order in this country," Johnson said.

He added that Gurkin and Marek appeared to be Castorina's "followers."

"These two individuals were to get the bombing material, make a bomb, and put the bomb on the south side of the detention center ... to tear down the wall so that Mr. Sean Castorina could escape," Johnson said. "They were to leave the country once that happened."

The sheriff thanked the individual who received the letter for coming forward, calling it an "important factor" in preventing the plot from coming to fruition.

"We could have certainly lost an inmate, we could have certainly lost employees here, and [we] certainly could have lost other county employees in surrounding buildings," Johnson said.

Castorina faces four counts of conspiracy to commit a felony, two counts of manufacturing, assembling, or storing a weapon of mass destruction, and one count of attempted escape from county jail, according to online court records.

Gurkin and Marek each face one felony count of malicious use of an explosive.

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