LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A man who escaped a southern Nevada prison on Friday and eluded police for five days was captured Wednesday night near downtown Las Vegas, the 8 News Now Investigators first reported.
Porfirio Duarte-Herrera, 42, was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole at the Southern Desert Correctional Center for the murder of Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio, who was 24. The prison is about 40 miles northwest of Las Vegas in the rural community of Indian Springs.
Las Vegas Metro police arrested Duarte-Herrera in the area of Owens and Eastern avenues around 10 p.m. Wednesday.
Around 9:30 p.m., police were alerted to a man matching Duarte-Herrera’s description in the area, police said. Duarte-Herrera was later arrested without incident. A transportation business in the area provides a shuttle service to Mexico.
Duarte-Herrera, an undocumented immigrant, is originally from Nicaragua.
“I am grateful to our state, local and federal law enforcement partners who helped capture this escaped inmate,” Nevada Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak said in a tweet Thursday. “The state is actively investigating the circumstances surrounding his escape.”
Duarte-Herrera used acid to help erode the area securing his cell window so he could climb out sometime Friday evening, sources said. He also created a cardboard dummy to leave in his cell, the 8 News Now Investigators first reported Tuesday.
The 8 News Now Investigators first reported the escape around 11 a.m. Tuesday. It was not until after 1 p.m. that NDOC officials issued a news release on the matter, confirming the 8 News Now Investigators’ earlier reporting. Later that day, NDOC officials said Duarte-Herrera had actually escaped Friday and not Tuesday as implied.
Federal officials first announced a $5,000 reward on Wednesday. The reward was increased to $30,000 just hours before Duarte-Herrera’s arrest. Metro police had also issued new photos of him Wednesday evening.
Duarte-Herrera and Omar Rueda-Denvers were convicted in 2009 for killing Dorantes Antonio, who died when the bomb, hidden in a coffee cup, exploded. The incident happened at a parking garage at the Luxor hotel in 2007.
Dorantes Antonio was Rueda-Denvers’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend.
In October 2006, Duarte-Herrera planted a bomb that exploded in a parking lot at a Home Depot near Charleston and Lamb boulevards, police said. Investigators found components similar to both devices at Duarte-Herrera’s residence, they said.
Several people who were involved in his murder trial and conviction were not notified immediately, sources told the 8 News Now Investigators.
Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, who sits on the Board of Prison Commissioners with the governor and Attorney General Aaron Ford was not notified until after 8 News Now’s reporting, she said in a statement.
It was unclear if and when Duarte-Herrera could appear in court, or when he would be returned to the Department of Corrections.
NDOC did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
