LOS ANGELES (AP) — Police captured a man on Friday who was convicted of threatening to kill Madonna and walked away from a Los Angeles-area mental hospital last week.
Robert Dewey Hoskins was found near the Metropolitan State Hospital, where he escaped, Los Angeles police spokesman Richard French said. He was returned to the facility after his arrest. Police didn’t comment about how Hoskins escaped or where he had been over the past week.
Hoskins, 54, served a 10-year prison sentence for stalking and threatening Madonna after being convicted in 1996.
The singer reluctantly testified against the man, who was shot by her personal security after he jumped the fence of her Hollywood Hills home.
Hoskins had told the singer’s assistants he would either marry Madonna or slash her throat from ear to ear.
At trial, Madonna said she felt sick to her stomach that she was in the same room as Hoskins and had nightmares about him chasing her.
“It was like a bad dream,” she said then. “I couldn’t believe it was actually happening and he had tried to make his threats a reality.”
Police had asked for the public’s help Thursday in locating Hoskins, saying he is “highly psychotic” and can be extremely violent.
A message left with a spokeswoman for the California Department of Mental Health was not immediately returned.