FORT MADISON, Iowa – Police searched on Friday for the remaining inmate on the loose after escaping from an Iowa prison by scaling a 30-foot wall. They said they captured the other fugitive as he slept in a stolen car.
Martin Moon, 34, was caught Thursday near an Illinois prison. He told investigators he was on his way to Tennessee, authorities said.
Moon and Robert Joseph Legendre, 27, broke out of the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison on Monday night. Legendre, who was convicted in Nevada in the kidnapping and attempted murder of a Las Vegas cabbie, was still being sought.
"He could be anywhere," said Gene Meyer, director of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
Authorities said the two used a homemade hook along with a rope fashioned from upholstery materials taken from the prison furniture shop. They went over an unguarded section of wall and got around a wire that is supposed to activate an alarm when touched.
Based on Moon's account, police believe the pair immediately split.
Police in Randolph County, Ill., discovered Moon after officials at Illinois' Menard State Penitentiary called to report a car parked nearby.
When an officer stopped to run on a check on its license plates, Moon drove off, but crashed into a fence, authorities said. Moon then tried to run away before being caught by a police dog.
Moon agreed to be returned to Iowa and was back at the state prison Friday morning, said Fred Scaletta, Corrections Department spokesman.
An investigation of the escape has begun, Gov. Tom Vilsack said.
"There were a series of mistakes that were made," he said.
A corrections official has said the guard tower near the spot where the inmates went over the wall was unmanned at the time because of budget cuts.
Moon was convicted of murder in 2000 for shooting his roommate during a drug deal in 1990.
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