On July 28, 1980, together with three other condemned murderers, Timothy McCorquodale, Johnny L. Johnson, and David Jarrell,[1] Gregg escaped from Georgia State Prison in Reidsville in the first death row breakout in Georgia history. Dressed in homemade correctional officer uniforms, complete with fake badges, the four had sawn through their cells' bars and then left in a car parked in the visitors' parking lot by one of their aunts. Gregg was beaten to death later that night in a bar fight in North Carolina.