Posted: Saturday, November 3, 2007 12:00 am
SALEM, Ore. (AP) - An escaped convict has agreed to return to Utah, 22 years after walking away from prison, authorities said Friday.
Lyndal Ritterbush, 62, waived extradition, state police said. It may take two weeks to get him back to Utah.
When he walked away from the Draper prison in 1985, Ritterbush had served six months of a term of five years to life for aggravated sexual abuse of a child, Utah authorities said.
A Nebraska man reported his name was used to obtain credit cards, which authorities traced to Ritterbush. He was living under an alias in Salem and arrested Thursday.
Oregon police said he was identified by fingerprints and information from Utah authorities. Investigators still were working on a picture of Ritterbush's life since he escaped.
Ritterbush told a detective that he had been in Oregon "for nearly all of the 22 years, most of which was spent in the Salem area where he lived under the alias of Robert Collins Rhoden," Lt. Gregg Hastings said.
On the night he fled, Ritterbush and another inmate apparently were working outside the prison fence, said Jack Ford, spokesman for the Utah Department of Corrections. The other prisoner was captured.