A maximum-security prison inmate who escaped in the Midwest last month while in transit to a San Diego-area state prison was captured Monday in the Pacific Northwest, authorities reported.
Agents with the U.S. Marshals Service and California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation tracked down Joshua Drinnon, 36, at a homeless shelter in Ashland, Oregon, and took him into custody without incident, according to CDCR public affairs.
Drinnon escaped Sept. 2 while being transported back to Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, where he is housed. He had been taken to Tennessee for a court appearance.
At a rest stop on Interstate 80, about five miles outside Princeton, Illinois, Drinnon was able to get out of his restraints, elude the transporting officers, scale a fence and run off into a cornfield.
Drinnon was sentenced in December 2012 to a 17-year prison term for a robbery committed in San Luis Obispo County. Prior to his escape, he had been scheduled to be released on parole in 2025.
