A Child Killer Tried Escaping From Graterford Prison In 2018

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, PA — A man who killed his three-year-old stepson back in 2003 was sentenced recently in Montgomery County Court to additional time in prison after a 2018 attempted escape from confinement at Graterford State Prison.

David C. Cummings, 54, a native of Reading, was sentenced on Sept. 20 to one to two years behind bars after pleading guilty to the attempt, court documents show.

Cummings was charged and convicted in 2015 for the 2003 slaying of his stepson. He confessed the killing to detectives while serving out time in prison for unrelated crimes, bringing a close to what had become a 12-year-old cold case.

The escape attempt occurred on June 28, 2018, as the Times Herald first reported.

Cummings broke a window in a common room at the prison, hopped out of it into a yard, and then climbed up an air conditioning unit to access the roof of another building.

He eventually made is way down into a tunnel, and came to a gate at the end, according to the report. He was captured in the tunnel, which would not have led him out of the prison walls.

He reportedly later told police he planned to put a ladder up against the wall. He said he had no help in the attempt.

In addition to the one to two year sentence handed down for the escape attempt, Cummings is only a few years into a 35-86 year sentence for murder.

According to court records, Cummings was not transferred to SCI Phoenix with other Graterford inmates, but has instead been incarcerated at SCI Frackville, a maximum security facility in Schuylkill County.