Justin Kestner

Justin Kestner

Illinois State Police caught the inmate who escaped overnight from Iowa’s maximum security prison in Fort Madison. The inmate was found just south of Geneseo, Illinois — more than 100 miles northeast of the prison.

Officials inside the Iowa State Penitentiary discovered 25-year-old Justin Kestner had escaped sometime early this morning, before sunrise. He was in his cell at 1:30 a.m. when officials conducted a routine inmate count, but was missing when the count was conducted at 4:30 a.m.

Department of Corrections spokesperson Fred Scaletta says inmates inside the state’s oldest prison are on “restricted movement.”

Kestner is serving a 10 year prison sentence stemming from a 2009 theft charge out of Woodbury County. He robbed a Sioux City convenience store.

(Reporting by Rob Sussman, KBUR, Burlington)