Las Vegas police have apprehended a man who escaped from prison this week while he was serving a life sentence for a deadly 2007 explosion outside a Las Vegas Strip resort.
Patrol officers took Porfirio Duarte-Herrera, 42, into custody "without incident," police said on Twitter at around 10:30 p.m. local time Wednesday (1:30 a.m. ET Thursday).
It is not yet clear what led up to the arrest or how authorities tracked down Duarte-Herrera, who had been on the run since at least Tuesday. Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Duarte-Herrera escaped from the Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs and was discovered missing during the 7 a.m. count Tuesday, the state Corrections Department said.
Search teams had been looking for Duarte-Herrera, whom the department described as a “medium-security inmate,” and a retake warrant was issued for his capture.
Police had announced just over two hours before Duarte-Herrera was taken into custody that federal authorities were offering a combined $30,000 reward for information leading to his capture. They had warned anyone who spotted him not to approach him and to call 911 immediately.
Gov. Steve Sisolak, who said in a statement this week that his office learned Tuesday that Duarte-Herrera had been missing since “early in the weekend," branded the incident "unacceptable." He said he had ordered the Corrections Department to launch a thorough investigation.
Duarte-Herrera, who arrived at the Corrections Department from Clark County in February 2010, had been serving a life sentence for murder with use of a deadly weapon.
He and Omar Rueda-Denvers were convicted of planting a pipe bomb that killed Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio, a hot dog stand vendor, in a parking structure of the Luxor hotel-casino in 2007.
Prosecutors said the motive was revenge against Dorantes Antonio, 24, who was dating Rueda-Denvers’ ex-girlfriend.
Rueda-Denvers, 47, remains behind bars at a separate state prison, according to Corrections Department records.
