‘Most Wanted' escapee caught

A Texas prison escapee who had been doing time for cutting a police officer's throat was captured Monday night in Omaha.

The Metro Area Fugitive Task Force captured David R. Puckett about 8:30 p.m. at an apartment at 4760 Lafayette Ave. Puckett had been featured on the “America's Most Wanted” television show after his escape last week.

Puckett had served eight years of a 30-year sentence in Beaumont, Texas, when he escaped Wednesday through a prison recreation yard.

About 5 p.m. Monday, authorities in Texas alerted the Metro Area Fugitive Task Force that Puckett may have been with an Omaha woman, who had been staying at the apartment.

The woman was arrested Monday for her role in helping Puckett.

The fugitive tried to escape through a window of the woman's second-story apartment, said Deputy U.S. Marshal John Huggins, who leads the fugitive task force.

Puckett kicked out the window screen and had one foot through the window but saw law enforcement officials waiting outside, Huggins said. Puckett stepped back inside but refused to comply, so Huggins shot him with a stun gun.

Even after Puckett was handcuffed he fought and kicked, the deputy marshal said, so officers used leg irons to restrain him. He was being held at the Douglas County Corrections Center and was awaiting possible extradition to Texas.