Friday, Sept. 20, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
* AUG. 13, 1946: Patrick McKenna is born in Leadville, Colo. Moves to Nevada as a child.
* 1960: Sentenced to the state's juvenile jail in Elko for stabbing a man.
* 1964: At age 17, he and another man rape a woman near Sunrise Mountain after beating her with a stick with a protruding nail. There are threats to put firecrackers inside her. McKenna receives a 20-year sentence.
* 1965: Prison officials find the bars in his Carson City cell have been cut.
* 1966: McKenna escapes by hiding in a garbage can. Later surrenders.
* 1967: He escapes again. A guard is taken hostage and an inmate dressed in his uniform marches several inmates out of the prison as an apparent work crew.
* 1968: Cell bars once again found cut.
* 1973: Third escape attempt. A knife is put to a guard's belly. There are cries of "kill the pigs."
* JUNE 1, 1976: McKenna paroled.
* JUNE 6, 1976: He botches a murder contract, letting the man go with the promise that he will leave the area. Instead, McKenna takes the man's girlfriend from Sparks to Reno, where he sexually assaults her. Parole is revoked.
* MARCH 19, 1978: McKenna serves out his sentence for the Sunrise Mountain rape and is released from prison.
* MAY 14, 1978: Shoots Harry "Jimmy" Heverly in the back of the head while robbing him of money and drugs, but doesn't kill him. Heverly's girlfriend, Tangie Flood-Terrell, is sexually assaulted.
* JULY 9, 1978: Meets two women in a Las Vegas motel. McKenna ties sheets around their necks and rapes them. He puts a pillow over the face of one and tells her to "feel death," but kills neither. He is arrested.
* JAN. 5, 1979: McKenna is convicted of the double rape and returns to his jail cell where he kills cellmate Jack J.J. Nobles, allegedly over a lost chess game or a dispute over a sex act. Several weeks later, McKenna is sentenced to three life terms plus 75 years for the rapes.
* AUG. 25, 1979: McKenna and other inmates obtain a gun and take hostages in a jail takeover that lasts two days. Incident ends in a shootout that leaves two prisoners dead. Later, McKenna is represented by his younger brother, Ken. Jury deadlocks.
* FEB. 20, 1980: After pleading guilty to lesser charges in the jail shootout, McKenna is sentenced to 92 additional years in prison.
* MARCH 1980: McKenna sentenced to death for killing Nobles.
* FEB. 14, 1981: Another escape attempt involving a gun and 11 hostages, including a female nurse, at the Carson City prison. McKenna, who was armed with a gun that had been hidden behind a shower wall, is captured.
* JAN. 28, 1982: Murder conviction and death penalty are overturned by the Nevada Supreme Court because testimony from McKenna's psychiatrist is permitted as evidence. A new trial is ordered.
* AUG. 26, 1982: Second jury convicts McKenna of murdering Nobles and sentences him to death.
* 1985: Weapon found fashioned from a razor blade and a toothbrush handle.
* 1987: Homemade handcuff key found in his toilet.
* 1991: McKenna caught in an elaborate escape plot. He burrowed into his ceiling, created masks from papier-mache and human hair, dug through a reinforced concrete wall and made rope braided from bedsheets. He also had wire cutters to break through the outer fence.
* APRIL 15, 1996: U.S. Supreme Court grants McKenna new death penalty hearing.
* SEPT. 19, 1996: A 10-woman, two-man jury sentences him to death.
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