Second Iowa Fugitive Nabbed in Missouri

FORT MADISON, Iowa – The second inmate who escaped from an Iowa prison was captured Friday in southern Missouri, Iowa officials said.

Robert Joseph Legendre, 27, was captured in Caruthersville, Mo., said Fred Scaletta, an Iowa prisons spokesman.

Legendre's capture comes a day after another inmate, Martin Moon, 34, was caught near Chester, Ill., southeast of St. Louis.

Prison officials said Moon and Legendre, who had been working in prison industries, escaped using a makeshift rope fashioned from upholstery webbing and a homemade grappling hook on Monday.

The inmates climbed over the wall near an unoccupied guard tower, and were discovered missing around 6 p.m.

Governor Tom Vilsack said those responsible for the security lapse will be held accountable.

"There were a series of mistakes that were made," he said.

Moon was returned to Iowa and was back at the prison on Friday, Scaletta said.

Few details of Legendre's capture were immediately available.

"He is in custody with officials in southern Missouri, that's all we know right now," said Jim Saunders, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Public Safety.

Moon was serving a life sentence for murder in the 1990 shooting death of his roommate during a drug deal. Legendre was convicted in Nevada in the kidnapping and attempted murder of a Las Vegas cabbie.