One of the two dangerous criminals who escaped from Iowa’s only maximum-security prison this week was captured this morning in southern Illinois. Jim Saunders, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, says police in Chester, Illinois, got a call that a suspicious person was in a car outside the state prison in Chester. Police arrived and found the car with a man sleeping inside.
Officers tried to wake the man, who immediately started the vehicle and sped away. He crashed into a fence and fled on foot and was quickly captured by a canine unit. Saunders says the suspect is 34-year-old Martin Moon, who broke out of Fort Madison on Monday. Moon was serving a life sentence for a Clarke County murder in 2000. Saunders couldn’t say what Moon was doing outside the Illinois prison.
Agents from Iowa are enroute to Illinois to question Moon. Authorities are still looking for 27-year-old Robert Legendre, who broke out with Moon three days ago. Moon was -not- in the gold Pontiac Bonneville which was stolen from Fort Madison shortly after the prison break. Saunders doesn’t know much about the car Moon was sleeping in when he was captured. It had Tennessee plates, though he didn’t know the make and model, but it had been stolen from a town in Illinois just across the river from Fort Madison.
Governor Tom Vilsack says prison officials continue to investigate how the inmates escaped in the first place. He says it appears there were a series of mistakes made at the prison and the individuals responsible will be held accountable.