MADISON, Ga. — Two Baldwin State Prison inmates that overpowered a pair of corrections officers on a prison transport bus Tuesday in Putnam County remained the focus of a nationwide manhunt Wednesday.

Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills is pleading for the public’s help in finding the escapees, who shot to death veteran state corrections officers Curtis Billue, 58, and Christopher Monica, 42, both of whom were sergeants and worked at Baldwin State Prison in Milledgeville.

The bodies of the slain state corrections officers were returned to funeral homes Wednesday afternoon. Two black hearses from two different funeral homes brought the men back home to Milledgeville. Troopers with the Georgia State Patrol and officers with the Georgia Department of Corrections led the way along a stretch of I-20 and later U.S. Highway 441 from Madison to Milledgeville.

The officers’ bodies were brought back from Decatur where autopsies were performed at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Crime Laboratory to determine the exact cause of death.

During the last several hours since the daring daylight escape of Donnie Russell Rowe, 43, and Ricky Dubose, 24, there have been several new developments in the manhunt, Sills said.

Both escapees are considered by authorities to be armed with 9mm handguns, the ones taken from the corrections officers after they were shot to death on the bus.

Authorities said both men are considered extremely dangerous, Sills said during a press conference held at the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office in Madison Wednesday afternoon.

The sheriff, who is spearheading the investigation along with assistance of multiple local, state and federal aw enforcement agencies including the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office, revealed at the press conference that the escapees also stole a pickup truck from a business in Morgan County.

“The escapees stole a 2008 white-colored Ford F-250 pickup truck,” Sills said, noting the Georgia license plate is BCX 5372. “This is an older model Ford truck; it’s a work truck, so it’s not in pristine condition. We know it has damage to the right rear quarter panel area.”

The trailer hitch on the truck, in some manner, has been cut with a torch, the sheriff said.

“And it has tool boxes not behind the truck, but on the inside of the bed of the truck,” Sills added.

The sheriff said the truck was stolen from a business, approximately nine miles east of Madison near Interstate 20 between 6 p.m. Tuesday and 6 a.m. Wednesday.

“Obviously, we think they may well be in the truck at this time.”

Sills also said there was a possibility that the escapees had split up, but that was before authorities found the car the two men stole and used as a getaway vehicle in Putnam County Tuesday. The 2004 Honda Civic was discovered in a wooded area of Morgan County Wednesday afternoon.

Authorities are now confident that the escapees are still together and traveling in the stolen pickup truck.

The Honda was stolen from a Putnam County man at gunpoint following the killings of the corrections officers and the inmates subsequent escape from the transport bus about 6:45 a.m. Tuesday.

Authorities believe the escapees drove away from the crime scene toward Eatonton and then headed into Morgan County and eventually the Madison area, where the massive manhunt by local, state and federal law enforcement officers converged Tuesday afternoon and into the night, as well as all day Wednesday.

A reward offered for the apprehension of the escapees has now grown to $115,000, Sills said, noting that several agencies, including the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, FBI, Georgia Department of Corrections, U.S. Marshal’s Service, Butts County Sheriff’s Office, Spaulding County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia Sheriff’s Association, Fraternal Order of Police and other law enforcement agencies were responsible for the reward fund.

Sills said in his professional opinion he doesn’t believe the escapees are any longer in Madison or Morgan County.

He said he believes strongly that they have left the area in the stolen pickup truck.

The manhunt moved from Putnam County to Morgan County Tuesday afternoon after authorities learned that the two men had broken into a house on Cox Road near Madison.

Authorities found some of the state-issued clothing worn by the escapees before they changed into other clothing at the house, which was entered and ransacked, Sills confirmed.

He said authorities had received more than 100 leads during the course of investigating the case thus far and they would check every lead that comes their way in an attempt to find the escapees and bring them to justice.

Any one with information on the case is urged to call the nearest law enforcement agency by dialing 911.