SKOWHEGAN — Early Friday morning, Somerset County sheriff’s deputies were still investigating a foiled jailbreak attempt. According to Somerset County Jail Administrator Michael Brown, jail personnel conducted a major security check, called a “Red Dog” operation, early Thursday afternoon.

During this check, it was discovered that a window in a cell shared by Michael Stackpole, 37, and Henry Lombard, 28, had been completely cut from its frame, so that it could be entirely removed. In addition, it was discovered that one of the window bars had been severed at the bottom.

Brown said hacksaw blades were used to cut the bars and were discovered in Stackpole’s socks during a subsequent strip-search. There were originally three blades, said Brown, that had been broken into pieces. Five pieces were in Stackpole’s socks, which he was wearing, and a sixth piece was found among his personal belongings.

Stackpole is in Somerset County Jail after being convicted last month of armed robbery, kidnapping and gross sexual assault. He is awaiting sentencing and a presentence investigation. He is also awaiting a parole violation hearing on a life sentence for a 1972 murder in St. Albans.

Lombard is awaiting trial for the double murder last Thanksgiving of two house guests in Clinton.

The men, said Brown, had been sharing a cell “because they were compatible. They got along, which is sometimes unusual here.”

Brown said intensive investigations and interviews would be conducted regarding the incident, but he had bascially ruled out visitors as the source of the blades. Both men are considered security risks and are allowed only non-contact visitation. Lombard has a history of escape and escape attempts, including an escape from Somerset County Jail in 1981. In that attempt, according to reports, Lombard sawed through bars, removed a window and slid down a fire roof, leaving a dummy behind in his cell.

Brown said that despite the fact that all the blades were found on Stackpole, both men are implicated in the escape attempt. He said that checks are made on the cells at 15-minute intervals but that a hole in the window, used to insert the blade, and the cuts themselves had been obscured with birthday and Christmas cards.

A petition to remove both men from Somerset and house them at Thomaston was prepared Friday, while Brown promised to look at increasing security personnel in the jail. “We are taking a hard look at getting one more person on each shift,” he said.

Although there has not been a successful escape from Somerset since a renovation in 1984, Brown said the type of criminal coming into the facility was changing.

“It is not coming,” he said. “It is here. I’m really sorry because I always thought this was a well-preserved area. But we are seeing a rise in serious crime. The classification of inmates has changed dramatically.”

Brown said the damage to the window was $400 and that the county might try to recover the damages from the inmates. He said no decision had been made regarding charging the men with attempted escape.