The day he arrived in prison, the man known as “Evil Ebel” got into a fight with another inmate, beginning a series of transgressions during his eight years behind bars.

When the Colorado Department of Corrections paroled Evan Ebel — the key suspect in the March 19 slaying of state prisons chief Tom Clements near Monument — his case manager expected Ebel back, giving him two-to-three odds that he would break the law again.

Ebel proved his case manager right.

Ebel, 28, was killed after a high-speed pursuit and gun battle with Texas authorities last week, less than two months after he was released on mandatory parole.

Ebel is also a suspect in the shooting death of pizza delivery driver Nathan Leon in the Denver area, two days before Clements was gunned down in the doorway of his home.

A picture of Ebel’s turbulent time behind bars emerged from prison records released Thursday under an open-records request filed by The Associated Press.

Ebel’s prison records are filled with 28 different reports of unruly behavior, threats and fights, including an assault on a guard who was punched in the face when Ebel slipped out of his handcuffs.

Ebel, originally sentenced to three years in prison for robbery and menacing, got four more years tacked on to his sentence because of that attack, records show.

More than half of Ebel’s violations happened during his first year in prison.

On Sept. 17, 2005, Ebel told a female guard “that he would kill her if he ever saw her on the streets and that he would make her beg for her life,” records show.

Ebel smeared feces on other inmates’ cell doors twice in May 2005 and again in September, the agency recorded.

Ebel behaved so badly that he landed in solitary confinement nine months after he arrived at Fremont Correctional Facility, one of five facilities where he served his time.

Ebel served most of his term in “maximum administrative segregation,” which a DOC spokeswoman described as 22 hours and 45 minutes in lockdown, one hour for exercise and 15 minutes for a shower. Ebel was in solitary confinement when he was released from Sterling Correctional Facility on Jan. 28, his mandatory parole date under the law.

Ebel participated in two separate programs aimed at getting prisoners out of solitary confinement. He failed the first one “within a few months” for disciplinary reasons and was removed from the second one, also because of disciplinary problems, records show.

Ebel had a swastika tattooed on his stomach and the word “hate” on his right hand. Ebel belonged to a white supremacist gang known as the 211 Crew and was nicknamed “Evil Ebel,” records show. According to published reports, authorities are investigating whether Clements’ killing was an orchestrated hit.

Ebel’s first brush with the law was in 2003, when he held a gun to an acquaintance’s head while they watched a Denver Broncos game and took his wallet, according to court records. He ended up in prison after being linked to two other armed robberies.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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This undated file photo released by the Colorado Department of Corrections shows paroled inmate Evan Spencer Ebel, alleged gunman in the shooting death of Colorado corrections chief Tom Clements. Investigators are examining Ebel’s alleged role in the kill Photo by AP Photo/Colorado Department of Corrections

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