Armon Dixon, one of two inmates who escaped a Lincoln prison on Friday morning, surfaced Saturday afternoon, popping up from a manhole cover at the roundabout of 49th and Francis streets.
Law enforcement took Dixon into custody without incident, capping an intensified search that had dogs and robots scouring the city's drainage system leading from Dead Man's Run.
Kailyn Duell, 15, watched from her house Saturday afternoon as officers pulled Dixon, shirtless on a 97-degree day, from the manhole. Nearby, people rode their bikes and walked their dogs.
Within moments, Lincoln Police Chief Jeff Bliemeister provided confirmation at a news conference across town that Dixon was captured at 2:10 p.m.
Timothy Clausen, 52, who escaped with Dixon from the Lincoln Correctional Center on Friday, remained at large on Sunday morning. A Nebraska State Patrol spokeswoman said the search for Clausen is focused on Omaha.
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"We are confident that Timothy Clausen will be apprehended," Bliemeister said. He asked for the public's help and said all leads will be pursued.
The extensive search for Dixon included not only Lincoln Police, the Nebraska State Patrol, Lancaster County Sheriff's Office, Metro Fugitive Task Force and University of Nebraska-Lincoln Police Department but also employees of the city's Public Works Department familiar with the drainage system and Parks and Recreation Department staff members carrying "Emergency Action Plan" binders.
The pursuit of Dixon began after a late morning assault that sent two women to the hospital.
Dixon, 37, is suspected in the physical assault reported at 11:12 a.m. at an apartment complex on the 5900 block of Norfolk Drive, along Dead Man's Run near Lincoln Lutheran High School.
As police investigated the assault, witnesses around 11:30 reported a man running into a culvert several blocks to the northwest, along Dead Man's Run between 48th and 49th streets.
For the next few hours, police set up a perimeter in the area, blocking intersections but also putting eyes on storm drains and manhole covers. Traffic on 48th Street slowed to a crawl. The city pulled the plug on swimming at University Place Park pool while the search went on.
Eventually a robot was sent into the culvert, with Dixon ultimately emerging from a manhole located about two blocks south of the Dead Man's Run channel.
The investigation into the escape continues, but speaking at Saturday's news conference, Prisons Director Scott Frakes said his department is working closely with law enforcement.
Frakes said the inmates escaped from the prison near Pioneers Park in a truck, but he declined to provide further details.
Bliemeister said police don't know where Dixon and Clausen spent the night or when they separated but hope to learn more after talking to Dixon.
Clausen is black, 5-foot-8, 160 pounds with brown eyes. From Omaha, he is serving 50 to 55 years for first-degree sexual assault of a child and tampering with a juror, according to the Corrections Department.
Dixon is serving 158 to 278 years for charges including first-degree sexual assault, robbery, first-degree assault, use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony, robbery, theft by receiving and possession of a controlled substance.
A State Patrol spokeswoman said Dixon was taken to an undisclosed secure location as the investigation continued.
Of the assault victims, a woman in her 60s was admitted for observation at a local hospital, the Patrol said. A 20-year-old female victim was treated and released.
Fear that the escapees might commit a random attack only heightened in the time since Dixon and Clausen crashed a stolen pickup truck into a parked car at 18th and F streets following a brief pursuit on Friday morning.
The search on Friday night was focused on a perimeter near the initial crash site.Â
Jan Crosby, who lives in the Plaza V Apartments at 705 S. 18th St., said a team of law enforcement officers searched her apartment Friday night around 8:30. She was out walking in her neighborhood Saturday morning armed with a stun gun.Â
"We're all worried," Crosby said of her neighbors. "We're all on high alert."
Friday afternoon, authorities spent hours searching near U.S. 77 and Saltillo Road after someone reported seeing two people who matched descriptions of the inmates running through a cornfield nearby.
With Clausen still at large, police said people who see any evidence their homes may have been entered should call 911.