Second Iowa fugitive captured at Bootheel truck stop

~ Robert J. Legendre had been asking customers for gas money.

The second of two inmates who used a homemade grappling hook to escape from an Iowa prison was captured Friday at a Bootheel truck stop.

Steele, Mo., police, acting on a tip from the public, caught Robert J. Legendre, 27, as he stood beside a pickup truck stolen in Marston, Mo., said Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Larry Plunkett.

Legendre had been on the run for four days.

"We've been receiving bulletins throughout the week of the Iowa escape," said Plunkett, spokesman for the patrol's Troop E in Poplar Bluff. "I have to give credit to citizens who were paying attention."

Legendre is accused of stealing a van in St. Louis Thursday, as well as another robbery and assault there, Plunkett said. He was being held at the Pemiscott County Jail Friday evening, awaiting officers from St. Louis to take him there to face charges.

"We will deal with those charges before he is extradited back to Iowa," Plunkett said.

Legendre, convicted of attempted murder, had been seen repeatedly at the truck stop since Thursday afternoon. He had asked customers for gas 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."

Cape Girardeau police did not put any manpower on the case or take any extra steps to watch for Legendre, spokesman Ike Hammonds said Friday.

Legendre escaped from the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison, Iowa, Monday with Martin Moon, 34. Moon was arrested Thursday near Chester, Ill.

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack suspended at least one state employee in connection with the breakout.

Vilsack said more suspensions were expected as state officials investigate how the inmates, using a rope fashioned from upholstery webbing from the prison furniture shop, were able to scale a 30-foot stone wall without officials noticing.

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 governor would not identify the suspended employee or his position but said there was a failure to account for inmates in the prison industries, where Moon and Legendre had been working.

Moon was serving a life sentence for murder in the 1990 shooting of his roommate during a drug deal. Legendre was convicted in the kidnapping and attempted murder of a Las Vegas cabbie.

Investigators believe the two men immediately split up after escaping. They were captured about 125 miles apart.

Staff writer Rudi Keller contributed to this report.