Convicted bombmaker who escaped prison is back in custody, Nevada officials say

UPDATE: The man who escaped from a Nevada prison was captured on the evening of Sept. 28 in Las Vegas, according to The Associated Press. Las Vegas police said someone spotted Porfirio Duarte-Herrera at a bus station and he was arrested.

The original story is below.

A convicted bombmaker serving life in prison in a 2007 explosion in Las Vegas has escaped a Nevada prison, officials say.

Authorities noticed Porfirio Duarte-Herrera, 42, was not there during the morning head count Sept. 27 at Southern Desert Correctional Center near Las Vegas, according to a Department of Corrections news release..

But he may have escaped earlier than that, Gov. Steve Sisolak said.

He used battery acid to break down the window frame of his cell and made a dummy, according to FOX 5.

“My office was informed by the Nevada Department of Corrections that an inmate was reported as missing. My office later learned that upon further investigation by NDOC the inmate has been missing since early in the weekend. This is unacceptable,” Sisolak said in a Sept. 27 statement.

Duarte-Herrera of Nicaragua was convicted in 2010 of killing a hot dog stand vendor with a motion-activated bomb in a coffee cup on top of a car parked at the Luxor hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, according to the New York Post.

The person who died was the new boyfriend of Duarte-Herrera’s co-defendant, the New York Post reported.

Duarte-Herrera is described as 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighing around 135 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes, according to the news release.

U.S. marshals are assisting in the search, and Las Vegas Metro police are aware of the escape, according to KTLA.

This story was originally published September 28, 2022 at 4:23 PM with the headline "Convicted bombmaker who escaped prison is back in custody, Nevada officials say."