By BILL DRAPER
(EDGERTON, MO., AP) – A third inmate who walked away from a northeast Kansas prison was captured late Friday, hours after the other two surrendered at a Missouri home where they had been holed up for hours, authorities said.
Randy Ridens Sr., 57, was taken into custody at 10:22 p.m. Friday as he was entering Topeka, Kan., the Kansas Department of Corrections said in a news release. He was returned to Lansing Correctional Facility. Authorities didn’t provide further details about how Ridens was apprehended.
Earlier Friday, Allen M. Hurst, 31, and Scott A. Gilbert, 49, walked out on the back deck of a rural Edgerton home after several hours of negotiations with law enforcement, Platte County Sheriff’s Capt. Erik Holland said.
On Friday morning, Platte County officers tried to pull over a stolen car in Platte City. Shots were fired at deputies at least twice during the ensuing chase, Holland said. The officers, who did not return fire, were not injured.
Hurst and Gilbert bailed out of the vehicle after it became stuck in the home’s yard. Then they broke into the house about 30 miles north of Kansas City. The owner was away at the time, and Holland said there is no connection between the homeowners and the men.
Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Jeremy Barclay said Hurst and Gilbert were both convicted in Sedgwick County, Kan., in 2010 of multiple counts of burglary and theft. Ridens was convicted in the Kansas counties of Shawnee and Douglas in 2010 of several burglary counts and one count of theft.
Barclay had said authorities believed Ridens parted ways with Gilbert and Hurst before the chase.
During the standoff, multiple law enforcement officers were on the scene. Highway Z, the only road that goes past the house, was also closed.
The North Platte R-1 School District kept students at an Edgerton intermediate school that serves fourth- to -sixth-graders inside for most of the day, although most of the students and staff were elsewhere Friday participating in field day.