PORTAGE, Wis. — The kitchen worker charged with helping two inmates escape from the Columbia Correctional Institution told investigators she smuggled items into the prison after receiving threatening notes.

According to a criminal complaint, Holly Marie Zimdahl told detectives the notes threatened to “rape and kill” her daughter, who also works at the prison.

Zimdahl said she received around 12 notes in total. Some of the notes instructed her to hide items in the prison kitchen, the complaint said.

Zimdahl, 46, of Pardeeville, was arrested last Friday, a day after two men escaped from CCI, the state’s maximum-security prison in Portage.

Video footage from the prison shows James Newman and Thomas Deering leaving their cells around 4:20 a.m. on April 16. The pair were scheduled to work in the bakery but never arrived to the kitchen area, the complaint said.

Other video shows the pair near a fenced area of the prison. Officers found a makeshift rope attached to a fence and several items covering a barbed-wire section.

According to the complaint, a detective found a crumpled-up note outside of the fenced area. It appeared to provide information about a location in Madison and details about catching a cab from the Best Western hotel in Portage. Detectives said a pile of bloodied clothes was found in the hotel’s parking lot.

Detectives talked with the taxi driver who met Newman and Deering. The driver said the men gave her a $100 bill and asked to be driven to Madison. In the complaint, the driver said she had to stay within a 10-mile radius of Portage and said the furthest south she could go was the Piggly Wiggly in Poynette.

The driver told detectives one of the men made small-talk with her while the other was on the phone. The driver said it sounded like the man was making arrangements to be picked up from the Piggly Wiggly, according to the complaint.

A dispatcher for Portage Cab also talked to detectives. The woman said she remembered the call because a man talked about why he needed a ride, which typically doesn’t happen.

Zimdahl worked in the prison kitchen as a civilian. Detectives found two cell phones, $1,400 in cash and a handwritten note about where to buy electric fence cutters during a previous search of Zimdahl’s car, the complaint said.

A jailer said Zimdahl reported to her that an unspecified “they” had threatened to rape her daughter and that “they” still had someone on the inside.

The complaint said detectives found additional cell phones in Zimdahl’s bedroom.

Zimdahl told detectives someone began leaving threatening notes around the kitchen where she worked in February. She said she did not know who was making these threats, the complaint said.

Zimdahl said “these guys know where to hide everything” and that she was told to put things in places like the milk cooler, in specific crates and under pallets. She said she received the note about the clippers about two weeks ago and placed them in the cooler a few days after that.

The complaint says Zimdahl knew it was wrong.

Newman and Deering were found on Friday at a non-profit in Rockford, Illinois.

An employee of Miss Carly’s posted about the incident on Facebook, saying two men showed up at the non-profit’s doors “shivering, frozen, wearing prison issue sweats and thermal shirts.”

The employee called 911 because she recognized the men as being the escaped prisoners from Wisconsin.

“They were only wearing thin thermal shirts and gray sweats, which I recognized to be prison issued. So, already I had a red flag raised,” Carly Rice told News 3 Now last week. “When they took off their mask to talk — it was just one of the regular COVID masks — I was like ‘Holy cow. These are the prison escapees.’”

According to online records, Deering has convictions for kidnapping, sexual assault, burglary, battery by a prisoner and escape. Newman has convictions for kidnapping, escape, theft and discharging a firearm.

The pair were taken into custody by the Rockford Police Department. According to the complaint, Deering bragged to officers that he was the only person in Wisconsin to escape from two maximum-security prisons.

According to the complaint, Deering also told officers escaping the prison was worth it, just to see the sunrise and sunset.

Deering and Newman will be held at the Winnebago County Jail until the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office brings them back to Wisconsin.

Zimdahl was arrested on Friday. She appeared in court for the first time Tuesday, where a Columbia County judge set her bond at $10,000. She is facing two felony charges, including party to escape and delivering illegal articles to an inmate. She has another court hearing in June.