Convicted murderer captured after Kansas jailbreak

TOPEKA, Kan. - April 20, 2012 (WPVI) -- A convicted murderer who escaped from a county jail in Kansas after being transferred from an overcrowded state prison has been caught, the state Department of Corrections said Friday.

Santos Carrera-Morales, 22, was arrested in Russell, Kan., about 80 miles from the Ottawa County jail, around 11:30 p.m. Thursday, the department said in a statement. No other details were immediately available.

Carrera-Morales and three other men escaped from the jail in Minneapolis, a small town about 120 miles west of Topeka, on Wednesday. One was apprehended soon after the jail break and another turned himself in at a Walmart in western Nebraska after his father counseled him to do so.

A fourth inmate, 22-year-old Eric James, who was incarcerated for 2008 convictions of aggravated robbery, burglary, kidnapping and criminal damage, remained at large Friday.

Carrera-Morales was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder for a double-slaying in 2007.

Ottawa County Sheriff Keith Coleman said the men escaped by using homemade knives to overpower two guards, get into the jail's control room and unlock doors. The jail break and subsequent furor prompted state officials to return all 19 state inmates being held at Ottawa County back to the state prison in Ellsworth.

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