FBI Offers $50k Reward in Chicago Jail Escape A manhunt for two bank robbers who used a makeshift rope to pull off a daring escape from a high-rise Chicago lockup pushed into a second day Wednesday, with authorities offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the men's apprehension. The former cellmates apparently broke a cell window, pulled out the bars then descended almost 20 stories to escape the downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center early Tuesday. Joseph "Jose" Banks, 37, and Kenneth Conley, 38, were unaccounted for during a 5 a.m. headcount, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. An FBI affidavit says the men were in their assigned areas for a head count around 10 p.m. Monday and that jail employees noticed the makeshift rope around 7 a.m.. Nearby business owners said helicopters and canine units did not swarm the area until almost 8:30 a.m. Inside the cell Tuesday morning, investigators found a broken window and bars inside a mattress, according to an FBI affidavit. Hours after the escape, the rope of bed sheets could be seen dangling down the side of the building, at least 200 feet long and knotted about every 6 feet. This undated photo provided by the FBI shows , Kenneth Conley, left and Jose Banks two inmates who escaped from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. Chicago Police Sgt. Michael Lazarro says their disappearance was discovered at about 8:45 Tuesday morning. Lazarro says the pair used a rope or bed sheets to climb from the building. The FBI has declined to provide details of the escape, but a close-up photograph clearly shows damage to the concrete along the lower edge of the window, which is 6 feet tall but only 6 inches wide. That damage broadened the hole through which the men must have had to climb beyond the narrow dimensions of the window. Banks and Conley were the first inmates to escape from the federal facility in nearly two decades. It was still unclear how they were able to accumulate enough bed sheets and other items need to pull off the escape, or how jail guards failed to detect the scheme or notice that the men were gone until several hours afterward. The FBI reissued a plea to the public to be on the lookout for the men, whom they believe are traveling together, and warned that they should be considered armed and dangerous. On Wednesday, Thomas Trautmann, the acting special agent-in-charge of the FBI's Chicago office, announced a $50,000 reward leading to their arrests. The apparently meticulously planned escape from the 27-story facility came just a week after Banks made a courtroom vow of retribution. The men, who have yet to be sentenced, are facing hefty prison terms. The facility, which can house up to 700 inmates, is one of the only skyscraper lockups in the world, and experts say its triangular shape was meant to make it easier to guard, theoretically reducing blind spots for guards. The only other escape from the nearly 40-year-old facility occurred in the mid-1980s, U.S. Marshal's Service spokeswoman Belkis Cantor said. Banks and Conley both were wearing orange jumpsuits, but police believe they quickly changed into white T-shirts, gray sweatpants and white gym shoes. SWAT teams stormed at least one home in Tinley Park on Tuesday. On Wednesday, police in neighboring Orland Park said a search had been conducted Tuesday of a home where an associate of Conley lived or once lived, but that search came up empty as well.