Second Iowa fugitive is captured in Pemiscot County

The second of two inmates who had escaped Monday from the Iowa State Penitentiary was captured in the Bootheel Friday morning, Nov. 18,, authorities said.

Robert Joseph Legendre, 27, who had been serving a sentence for attempted murder, was captured in Steele, Mo. On Thursday, convicted murderer Martin Moon, 34, with whom Legendre had escaped, had been caught near Chester, Ill.

Ryan Holder, with the Pemiscot County Sheriff's Department, said Steele police Chief Mike Tomlinson Sr. found Legendre at a truck stop. Legendre was in a pickup truck that had been reported stolen. He surrendered peacefully and was taken to the Pemiscot County Justice Center in Caruthersville, and later turned over to St. Louis authorities.

Legendre had been convicted in Nevada in the kidnapping and attempted murder of a Las Vegas cabbie and was transferred to Iowa last year. He was serving two sentences of 15 years to life.

Legendre had been on the run for four days. He was captured without incident around 7:47 a.m. Friday after the Missouri State Highway Patrol received information that he was at the truck stop. The information was dispatched to area law enforcement agencies, said patrol Sgt. Larry Plunkett, public information and education officer for Troop E.

"We've been receiving bulletins throughout the week of the Iowa escape," Plunkett said. "I have to give credit to citizens who were paying attention."

Chief Tomlinson went to the Deerfield Travel Center, saw Legendre sitting in the driver's seat of of the stolen pickup. He drew his pistol and arrested Legendre without incident.

Legendre is accused of stealing a van in St. Louis Thursday as well as a robbery and assault there, and the theft of a Chevrolet pickup truck at a cafe at Marston.

"We'll deal with those charges before he is extradicted to Iowa," Plunkett said.

Legendre has been seen at the truck stop since Thursday afternoon. He had been asking people for money.

"The girls were making him a sub, and he said he was a state convict," said Vivian Hannaford, a cashier. "We thought he was kidding."

One of those he accosted, Jeremy Burton, became suspicious and went to off duty Highway Patrol officer Nogi McDaniel's residence and told him he thought a man he saw at the truck stop was the escapee he had seen on the news. McDaniel then called the Pemiscot County Sheriff's office. That's when Chief Tomlinson was sent to the truck stop.

Legendre and Martin Moon had scaled a wall at the prison in Fort Madison, Iowa. Authorities said the men had escaped using a homemade hook and a rope fashioned from upholstery materials taken from the prison furniture shop. They went over an unguarded section of wall late Monday and got around a wire that is supposed to activate an alarm when touched.

Moon, 34, was convicted of murder in 2000 for shooting his roommate during a drug deal in 1990 and was serving a life sentence.

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. Moon then tried to run away before being caught by a police dog.

The car was believed to have been stolen from a home in Ferris, Ill., officials said.

Based on Moon's account, police had said they believed the pair immediately split after escaping from prison. The towns where the two men were caught are about 125 miles apart.

Moon was returned to Iowa Thursday, said Fred Scaletta, an Iowa prison spokesman. He made an initial appearance Friday in a courtroom inside the prison, charged with escape, and a public defender was appointed to represent him.

An investigation of the escape was under way, 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.

The Associated Press and S.E. Mo. News Service contributed to this story.